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Sustainability Economics, Resource Efficiency, and the Green New Deal Read chapter Read first chapter

2011 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. The Resources of Economies and the Productivity of Materials: Relevance, Measurement, Empirical Trends, Innovation, Resource Policies

Authors : Raimund Bleischwitz, Stefan Bringezu

Published in: International Economics of Resource Efficiency

Publisher: Physica-Verlag HD

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Abstract

Besides the major concern with climate change, it is increasingly evident that the natural resource base is one of the major issues of international environmental economics and policy. This paper argues that resource productivity – that is the efficiency of using natural resources to produce goods and services in the economy – will be one of the key determinants of economic success and human well-being in the upcoming years and decades. Deviating from ongoing political struggle about burden sharing and abatement costs, our paper underlines that international economic policy shall promote resource productivity not only as a source of future competitive advantage as well as a pillar for the transition to a low fossil carbon economy.

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previous chapter System Innovation for Environmental Sustainability: Concepts, Policies and Political Economy
next chapter The Economics of Current Metal Markets
Footnotes
1
The notion of a “low carbon economy” is increasingly popular. One should however also take into account opportunities to re-use carbon for other purposes in the future; see e.g. Bringezu (2009).
 
2
See e.g. the seminal paper written by Solow (1974) and the reflections in “Journal of Natural Resources Policy” 1/2009 (Gopalakrishnan 2009).
 
3
Biomass might be an exception; however biomass gasification and other related technologies also demand metals for the production of useful energy.
 
4
LED stands for light-emitting dioxide.
 
5
See e.g. the European Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking at: http://​ec.​europa.​eu/​research/​fch/​index_​en.​cfm and the World Hydrogen Conference at: http://​www.​whec2010.​com.
 
6
See also the contribution written by Christian Hagelücken in this book.
 
7
Evidence from EU projects such as INDI-LINK, CALCAS, Sustainability A-Test, MATISSE, FORESCENE; see also Bringezu and Bleischwitz 2009, Chap. 2.
 
8
We use the term material productivity if the denominator is DMC or DMI and resource productivity for the more inclusive measurement approaches with TMR/TMC and for general purposes.
 
9
Test statistic for EU-15, 1980–2000: an increase in the import share by 1% would raise the DMC per capita by 0.225%. Research done by Soeren Steger, see Bleischwitz et al. 2009a, b; see also: Dittrich 2009.
 
10
Based on Eurostat and ten minerals, but no semi-final goods; the share actually is higher than the analysis of de Bruyn et al. (2009) suggests.
 
11
See also the paper written by Tomoo Machiba “Framing Eco Innovation for Resource Efficiency and Green Growth”.
 
12
In Germany, ten sectors induce more than 75% of the TMR; see Acosta et al. (2007).
 
13
See also the contributions made by Rene Kemp and Paul Ekins in this book.
 
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Metadata
Title
The Resources of Economies and the Productivity of Materials: Relevance, Measurement, Empirical Trends, Innovation, Resource Policies
Authors
Raimund Bleischwitz
Stefan Bringezu
Copyright Year
2011
Publisher
Physica-Verlag HD
Book
International Economics of Resource Efficiency

Print ISBN: 978-3-7908-2600-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-7908-2601-2

Copyright Year: 2011

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2601-2_4