Possible Target Corridor for Sustainable Use of Global Material Resources

Abstract

Many countries have started to develop policy programs for the sustainable use of natural resources. Indicators and targets can cover both a territorial and a life-cycle-wide global perspective. This article focuses on how a safe operating space for global material resource use can be outlined based on existing economy-wide material flow indicators. It reflects on issues such as scale and systems perspective, as the choice of indicators determines the target "valves" of the socio-industrial metabolism. It considers environmental pressures and social aspects of safe and fair resource use. Existing proposals for resource consumption targets are reviewed, partially revisited, and taken as a basis to outline potential target values for a safe operating space for the extraction and use of minerals and biomass by final consumption. A potential sustainability corridor is derived with the Total Material Consumption of abiotic resources ranging from 6 to 12 t/person, the Total Material Consumption of biotic resources not exceeding 2 t/person, and the Raw Material Consumption of used biotic and abiotic materials ranging from 3 to 6 t/person until 2050. For policy, a "10-2-5 target triplet" can provide orientation, when the three indicators are assigned values of 10, 2, and 5 t/person, respectively.

Dematerialization—A Disputable Strategy for Resource Conservation Put under Scrutiny

“…Some authors, who propagate dematerialization as the central and dominant maxim of action for resource conservation [59], borrow the precautionary principle as a context of justification from environmental policy. It serves both the derivation for the basic necessity of a reduction of primary material extraction and a determination of different quantitative targets of dematerialization [30]. Since the precautionary principle is at the core of justification for dematerialization strategies (see Section 2.3), we take a closer look at this central principle of environmental policy in this section.…”

“…Setting global dematerialization as well as material efficiency targets is, therefore, arbitrary within the meaning of the communication [157], and the precautionary principle cannot be relied upon. Bringezu also argues that dematerialization targets should be set "rather arbitrarily" due to the lack of scientific evidence "void of better alternatives" and should be based on Schmidt-Bleek's proposals [30,59]. However, there is an alternative to general dematerialization by an arbitrary factor as a strategy for the urgently needed response to the threat of exceeding planetary carrying capacity.…”

“…These are linked to different material flow indicators ( Figure 2) and have very different ambition levels. Bringezu and Mancini et al provide an overview of more recent proposals [30,54]. The dematerialization objectives are rooted in the tradition of a so-called factor X concept.…”

“…The postulated connection between mass and environmental impact potential is based solely on plausibility arguments [156]. There is still no scientific evidence (see Section 3.2.1 and [30]). Regression analyses failed to show either a link between direct and indirect material demand and environmental impacts caused in upstream systems, or for the direct material consumption of a system and the environmental impacts generated by this system.…”

Editorial: Circular economy in the built environment

“…Initiatives to dematerialise the economy have persisted for many decades. However, achieving step-change reductions in a sector of this scale is a complex challenge that proves difficult to measure, despite city development proving to be effective in raising living standards (Bringezu, 2015). Analysis from the United Nations predicts that more than 66% of the world's population will be living in urban areas by 2050, compared with 54% currently.…”