Chair of
Environment and Economics

Prof. Dr. Sylvie Geisendorf, Chair Owner of the Enironnment and Economics chair, Berlin campus, ESCPEnvironmental issues such as climate change and resource scarcity are gaining increasing importance in society, political decisions and for business. A forward-looking understanding of future requirements for a sustainable economy offers opportunities for innovation and the ability of market leadership in the environmental sector.

The ESCP Chair of Environment and Economics - founded in the summer of 2011 - picks up these topics in innovative ways. Current environmental problems are discussed jointly with their economic analysis and behavioural foundations of economic decisions.

In research, the chair focusses on Agent-Based-Modelling and Behavioural Economic approaches in Ecological Economics. Simulation models are used to understand why decisions often lead to an unsustainable behaviour and to analyse how politics could change that. A further area of interest is the Circular Economy.

The chair holder Prof. Dr. Sylvie Geisendorf is Scientific Director of the Research Center SustBusy: Business and Society - Towards a Sustainable World and European Academic Director of the Master in International Sustainability Management.

- Prof. Dr. Sylvie Geisendorf

The team

From left to right: Ann Ziegler, Prof. Dr. Sylvie Geisendorf, Andrea Gommans, Laura Merz, Dr Simon Rabaa

Teaching
We offer the following courses:

Bachelor in
Management(BSc)

  • Human Behaviour: Theories and Applications
    Prof. Dr. Robert Wilken / Prof. Dr. Sylvie Geisendorf
  • The Newtonian Shift 2.0 - Sustainability Business Game
Go to the programme

MSc in
International Sustainability Management

  • Environmental and Resource Economics
  • Ecosystems Theory
  • Elective: Serious Gaming - Designing Tools for the Sustainability Transition
  • Academic Writing
  • CatchUp Course Economics
Go to the programme

Master in
Management

  • Business Simulation Game (ESCP Campus Berlin and Paris)
Go to the programme

PhD
Programme

  • Agent-Based Modeling with NETLOGO and Mathematica
Go to the programme

Research

Research approach

Agent-Based-Modelling on the basis of Behavioural and Evolutionary Economics with application in Ecological Economics

Topics

  • Climate-economic models on a behavioural basis
  • Behavioural aspects of environmental problems
  • Resource scarcity
  • Sustainable development
  • Circular economy

Methods

  • Agent-based modelling
  • Evolutionary economics
  • Behavioural economics
  • Complexity theory
  • Genetic algorithms

Research topics

Climate-Economic Multi-Agent Modelling

Several papers on an update and further development of a multi-agent model on climate change, the “battle of perspectives” investigate the effect of bounded rationality and learning on climate policy.

Multi-Agent Analysis of Sustainability Policy

A recent project models the link between an evolving, innovating economy, based on a Nelson-Winter approach with a renewable natural resource. Both systems are modelled considering more complexity than traditional environmental or resource economic models do. The model is used to analyse if and how a sustainable path can be reached in this coupled system.

Circular Economy

The 3 year EU funded Horizon 2020 project “R2 π: Transition from Linear to Circular: Policy and Innovation” conducts case studies and develops teaching material on the Circular Economy. A recent publication, “The circular economy and circular economic concepts–a literature analysis and redefinition”, provides key insights on the circular economy and redefines the concept in light of the other similar concepts such as cradle-to-cradle or the blue economy.

Current project applications

  • Horizon 2020 call: H2020-SwafS-2016-17 (Science with and for Society) “iOPENER
  • Horizon 2020 call: H2020-MG-2016-2017, RIA, MG-7-2-2017 „Pipe§Net

Research center

SUST BUSY: Business and Society - Towards a Sustainable World

Scientific Director: Prof. Dr. Sylvie Geisendorf, ESCP Berlin

The research center “Business and Society – Towards a Sustainable World” (SustBusy), whose office is located at the Department of Environment and Economics in Berlin provides a common roof for these related activities. The individual and group-related research projects cover a wide area of research issues. Company-specific issues, development of a sustainability culture, implementation of a sustainability strategy or sustainable supply chains are covered as well as CSR reporting, socially responsible investment, social issues of an anti-consumption lifestyle and a behavioural economics based analysis of environmental policy. The special feature of the research center is the broadly-based position of its members and its high potential for synergies. There are two main links between our approaches where individual projects might benefit from each other. First there are several projects on the company and reporting level which could exchange information on a sustainability culture or strategy as well as CSR reporting. Second, the projects on company, consumer and financial market level would benefit from a link to the political/regulation side as well as this research could profit from empirical results on the behaviour of the respective agents.

Focus on:
Last Publications

Articles in magazines

Geisendorf, Sylvie (2017): Evolutionary Climate-Change Modelling: A Multi-Agent Climate-Economic Model. Computational Economics, DOI 10.1007/s10666-017-9549-3

Essays in anthologies

Geisendorf, Sylvie (2009): The irrational foundations of neoclassical economics - How economists tried to become „scientific“ with simplified Newtonism. In: Ötsch, Walter O. und Thomasberger, Claus (Hg.) Der neoliberale Markt-Diskurs Ursprünge, Geschichte, Wirkungen. Metropolis, Marburg

Monographs

Hey, Christian, Hickmann, Gerd, Geisendorf, Sylvie, Schleicher Tappeser, Ruggero (1992) Dead End Road. Climate change in European freight transport, Freiburg

Reviewed Conference Papers

Ecological instability and economic evolution – Integrated biological evolutionary modelling, Annual meeting of the Society for Evolutionary Economics, Hannover, 30th June – 2nd July 2016

Working Papers

Geisendorf, Sylvie (2009): Do we believe in climate change? A multi-agent climate-economic model. papers on agent-based economics: 08 (2009). Section environmental and innovation economics, University of Kassel

Publications
Find an overview

Display:
34 publications

Academic Articles

2024

WILKEN, R., S. RABAA, S. GEISENDORF

Does recalling energy efficiency measures reduce subsequent climate-friendly behavior? An experimental study of moral licensing rebound effects

ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS, vol. 217, 108051

Academic Articles

2022

JOHNSON, D., S. GEISENDORF

Valuing ecosystem services of sustainable urban drainage systems: A discrete choice experiment to elicit preferences and willingness to pay

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, 307

Academic Articles

2022

RABAA, S., S. GEISENDORF, R. WILKEN

Why change does (not) happen: Understanding and overcoming status quo biases in climate change mitigation

ZEITSCHRIFT FUR UMWELTPOLITIK UND UMWELTRECHT, 2022(1), 100-134

Academic Articles

2022

GEISENDORF, S., C. KLIPPERT

Integrated sustainability policy assessment – an agent‑based ecological‑economic model

JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMICS, 32(3), 1017 - 1048

Chapters

2022

GEISENDORF, S.

Agentenbasierte Modellierung als evolutorische Analysemethode

In: Evolutorische Ökonomik - Konzepte, Wegbereiter und Anwendungsfelder, Marco Lehmann-Waffenschmidt und Michael Peneder (Hrsg.) Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

Academic Articles

2021

JOHNSON, D., J. EXL, S. GEISENDORF

The Potential of Stormwater Management in Addressing the Urban Heat Island Effect: An Economic Valuation

SUSTAINABILITY, 13, 8685, 19

Academic Articles

2019

AIGNER, A., R. WILKEN, S. GEISENDORF

Using Consumer Empowerment to Increase the Effectiveness of Price Discounts

MARKETING ZFP - JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT, 41(2), 48-63

Academic Articles

2019

AIGNER, A., R. WILKEN, S. GEISENDORF

The Effectiveness of Promotional Cues for Organic Products in the German Retail Market

SUSTAINABILITY, 11, 6986, 15

Academic Articles

2019

JOHNSON, D., S. GEISENDORF

Are Neighborhood-level SUDS Worth it? An Assessment of the Economic Value of Sustainable Urban Drainage System Scenarios Using Cost-Benefit Analyses

ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS, 158, 194-205

Academic Articles

2018

GEISENDORF, S.

Evolutionary Climate-Change Modelling. A Multi-Agent Climate-Economic Model

COMPUTATIONAL ECONOMICS, 52: 3, 921-951

Team and contact

Prof. Dr. Sylvie GEISENDORF, Chair of Environment and Economics, Berlin Campus, ESCP

Prof. Dr. Sylvie Geisendorf

Chair Owner & European Academic Director
Master in International Sustainability Management
sgeisendorf@escp.eu
Daniel Jonhson, Research Assistant, Berlin Campus, ESCP

Dr. Daniel Johnson

Graduate of the Chair
djohnson@escp.eu
Simon Rabaa, Research, Research assistant, Berlin Campus, ESCP

Dr Simon Rabaa

Graduate of the Chair
srabaa@escp.eu
Christian Klipper, External PhD student, Berlin Campus, ESCP

Christian Klippert

External PhD student
Research assistant / PhD student, Berlin Campus, ESCP

Laura Merz

Research assistant / PhD student
lmerz@escp.eu