Sustainable Development and Resource Productivity
Sustainable Development and Resource Productivity

Author: Harry Lehmann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-11

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 1000213749

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The fourth Factor X publication from the German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA), Sustainable Development and Resource Productivity: The Nexus Approaches explores the interdependencies of sustainable development paths and associated resource requirements, describing and analysing the necessities for a more resource efficient world. The use of and competition for increasingly scarce resources are growing worldwide with current production and consumption patterns of industrialised economies soon to reach the point where the ecosphere will be overtaxed far beyond its limits. Against this background, this volume examines the important initiatives to monitor resource use at the international, EU and national level. The current trends and challenges related to sustainable resource use are discussed, including international challenges for a resource efficient world, megatrends, justice and equitable access to resources. In the second part of the book, contributions examine implementation strategies. They assess the concept known as circular economy and discuss the theory of growth and the role of the financial and education systems. The final section places special emphasis on practical examples. Overall, the book presents concrete ways and examples of achieving more sustainability in practice. Discussing solutions for a more sustainable use of natural resources, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of natural resources and sustainable development and decision-makers and experts from the fields of policy development, industry and civil society. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003000365, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity
Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity

Author: Raimund Bleischwitz

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-29

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 135127919X

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Written by international experts in their respective fields, Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity provides a comprehensive overview of global issues of raw materials supply and resource use. It also introduces new views and perspectives on the sustainable growth of emerging economies and develops a rationale for a new resource economics. This book emphasises why resources are back on the agenda: firstly, because of their fundamental economic role in technological progress and long-term prosperity; secondly, because deficits in raw material markets are now intertwined with deficits in the financial markets; and, thirdly, because the sustainable management of natural resources is a crucial element in responses to new global challenges such as climate change. Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity analyses raw materials supply and resource use in a global context. The contributions present state-of-the-art results and perspectives on the availability of resources and discuss factors such as limited supply, demand from emerging and other economies and the critical shortage of some materials – particularly some metals – that are essential inputs in many high-tech processes and may put certain industries at risk. Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity sheds new light on the economics of sustainable growth. Linking the current financial crisis with stock market pricing and innovation dynamics, it argues for reforms in international macro-economic policies. It also critically discusses the implications of valuing labour productivity over capital and resource productivity and argues that policies favouring capital productivity will increase both social and economic sustainability. Further contributions are made on the business dimensions of material efficiency as well as on policy recommendations. The book examines the overall empirical trend towards decoupling resource use from economic growth. It undertakes a rigorous cross-country comparison and looks in more detail at the cases of Finland and Greece, as well as at emerging economies and their role in the global governance of natural resources. A key focus is placed on China, with discussion of recent findings regarding Chinese domestic policy on energy, climate and resources as well as on developing Chinese foreign policy in Africa. The book concludes with the positing of a new theory of resource economics: an emerging sub-discipline that puts resources at its heart but clearly aligns with other fields of economics, and transcends the borderlines of geology, geography, material science, recycling and waste, as well as elements of other social sciences. This important new book will be essential reading for economic researchers, governmental officials, businesses and NGOs with an interest in understanding the policy links to sustainable growth and in learning more about the emerging field of resource productivity.

OECD Green Growth Studies Material Resources, Productivity and the Environment
OECD Green Growth Studies Material Resources, Productivity and the Environment

Author: Oecd

Publisher:

Published: 2015-02-27

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 9789264190498

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Improving resource productivity and ensuring a sustainable resource and materials management building on the principle of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) is a central element of green growth policies. It helps to improve the environment, by reducing the amount of resources that the economy requires and diminishing the associated environmental impacts, and sustain economic growth by securing adequate supplies of materials and improving competitiveness. To be successful such policies need to be founded on a good understanding of how minerals, metals, timber or other materials flow through the economy throughout their life cycle, and of how this affects the productivity of the economy and the quality of the environment. This report contributes to this understanding. It describes the material basis of OECD economies and provides a factual analysis of material flows and resource productivity in OECD countries in a global context. It considers the production and consumption of materials, as well as their international flows and available stocks, and the environmental implications associated with their use. It also describes some of the challenges and opportunities associated with selected materials and products that are internationally-significant, both in economic and environmental terms (aluminium, copper, iron and steel, paper, phosphate rock and rare earth elements).

Factor X
Factor X

Author: Harry Lehmann

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-09-28

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 3319500791

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This book describes and analyses necessities for a more resource-efficient world. It discusses solutions for a more sustainable use of natural resources, addressing decision-makers and experts from the fields of policy development, industry, academia, civil society, and the media. The book presents strategies, concrete ways and examples of achieving more sustainable resource use in practice. Following on from two previous titles published on Factor X by the Umweltbundesamt (German Environment Agency), entitled “Factor X: Policy, Strategies and Instruments for a Sustainable Resource Use” (2013) and “Factor X: Re-source – Designing the Recycling Society” (2014), this book further investigates how savings in natural resources and resource efficiency improvements could be achieved, focusing on good practice examples that cover different resource categories, pursue different efficiency strategies and come from different sectors, e.g. innovative products or services, technology, man agement approaches, systemic approaches, etc. The background against which this work is done has a highly comprehensive span, from the first Declaration of the Factor X Club in the nineties, to the European Commission’s Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe that was published in September 2011, through to the German Federal government’s German Resource Efficiency Programme (ProgRess I and II) in 2012 and 2016, the G7 Alliance for Resource Efficiency, and most recently the development and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Sustainable Resource Management
Sustainable Resource Management

Author: Stefan Bringezu

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-08

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1351279262

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Looking at material flows, industrial and societal metabolism and their implications for the economy, this book provides radical perspectives on how the global economy should use natural resources in intelligent ways that maximise well-being without destroying life-supporting ecosystems.

Factor Four
Factor Four

Author: Ernst U.von Weizsacker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-11

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1134177615

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Since the industrial revolution, progress has meant an increase in labour productivity. Factor Four describes a new form of progress, resource productivity, a form which meets the overriding imperative for the future (sustainability). It shows how at least four times as much wealth can be extracted from the resources we use. As the authors put it, the book is about doing more with less, but this is not the same as doing less, doing worse or doing without. In 1972, the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth, which sent shock waves around the world by arguing that we were rapidly running out of essential resources. This Report to the Club of Rome offers a solution. It lies in using resources more efficiently, in ways which can already be achieved, not at a cost, but at a profit. The book contains a wealth of examples of revolutionizing productivity, in the use of energy; from hypercars to low-energy beef; materials, from sub-surface drip irrigation to electronic books, transport, video conferencing to CyberTran, and demonstrating how much more could be generated from much less today. It explains how markets can be organized and taxes re-based to eliminate perverse incentives and reward efficiency, so wealth can grow while consumption does not. The benefits are enormous: profits will increase, pollution and waste will decrease and the quality of life will improve. Moreover, the benefits will be shared: progress will no longer depend on making ever fewer people more productive. Instead, more people and fewer resources can be employed. While for many developing countries the efficiency revolution may offer the only realistic chance of prosperity within a reasonable time span. The practical promise held out in this book is huge, but the authors show how it is up to each of us, as well as to businesses and governments, to make it happen.

The Circular Economy and the Global South
The Circular Economy and the Global South

Author: Patrick Schröder

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-12

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0429783698

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The circular economy is a policy approach and business strategy that aims to improve resource productivity, promote sustainable consumption and production and reduce environmental impacts. This book examines the relevance of the circular economy in the context of developing countries, something which to date is little understood. This volume highlights examples of circular economy practices in developing country contexts in relation to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), informal sector recycling and national policy approaches. It examines a broad range of case studies, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, and Thailand, and illustrates how the circular economy can be used as a new lens and possible solution to cross-cutting development issues of pollution and waste, employment, health, urbanisation and green industrialisation. In addition to more technical and policy oriented contributions, the book also critically discusses existing narratives and pathways of the circular economy in the global North and South, and how these differ or possibly even conflict with each other. Finally, the book critically examines under what conditions the circular economy will be able to reduce global inequalities and promote human development in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. Presenting a unique social sciences perspective on the circular economy discourse, this book is relevant to students and scholars studying sustainability in economics, business studies, environmental politics and development studies.

Factor Five
Factor Five

Author: Ernst Ulrich von Weizsacker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-12-01

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1136545794

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When first published in 1997, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use by renowned economic and engineering experts Ernst von Weizsäcker, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, transformed how economists, policy makers, engineers, entrepreneurs and business leaders thought about innovation and wealth creation. Through examples from a wide range of industrial sectors, the authors demonstrated how technical innovation could cut resource use in half while doubling wealth. Now twelve years on, with climate change at the top of the world agenda and the new economic giants of China and India needing ever more resources, there is a unique historic opportunity to scale up resources productivity and radically transform the global economy. And Factor Five is the book set to change all of this. Picking up where Factor Four left off, this new book examines the past 15 years of innovation in industry, technical innovation and policy. It shows how and where factor four gains have been made and how we can achieve greater factor five or 80%+ improvements in resource and energy productivity and how to roll them out on a global scale to retool our economic system, massively boost wealth for billions of people around the world and help solve the climate change crises. Spanning dozens of countries including China and India and examining innumerable cases of innovation in design, technology and policy, the authors leave no engineering and economic stone unturned in their quest for excellence. The book tackles sustainable development and climate change by providing in depth Factor 5 resource productivity studies of the following sectors: Buildings, Industry, Agriculture, Food and Hospitality, and Transportation. In its systematic approach to demonstrating how Factor 5 can be achieved, the book also provides an overview of energy/water nexus and energy/materials nexus efficiency opportunities across these sectors. Given that these sectors are responsible for virtually all energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions globally, this book is designed to guide everyone from individual households, businesses, industry sector groups to national governments in their efforts to achieve the IPCC recommended target of 80 per cent reductions to greenhouse gas emissions. It also looks at innovation in regulation to increase resource productivity, pricing, carbon trading, eco-taxation and permits and the role of international institutions and trade. The authors also explain exciting new concepts such as bio-mimicry and whole system design, as hallmarks for a new generation of technologies. The last part of the book explores transformative ideas such as a long term trajectory of gently rising energy and resource prices, and new concepts of well-being in a more equitable world. Like its predecessor this book is simply the most important work on the future of innovation, business, economics and policy and is top drawer reading for leaders across all sectors including business and industry, government, engineering and design and teaching. This book is full colour throughout. Published with The Natural Edge Project