Download or read book International Economics of Resource Efficiency written by Raimund Bleischwitz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-07-17 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human societies face a threatening future of resource scarcity and environmental damages. This book addresses the challenge of turning these risks into opportunities and policies. It is a collection of high level contributions from experts of sustainable growth and sustainable resource management. Focussing on economics, sustainability, technology and policy, the book highlights system innovation, leapfrogging strategies of emerging economies, possible rebound effects and international market development. It puts natural resources centre stage and will make an important contribution to achieving the goal of a 21st century Green Economy.
Download or read book Investing in Resource Efficiency written by Florian Flachenecker and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the multi-faceted incentives, trade-offs, and challenges associated with the economics and politics of resource efficiency investments. By contributing a wide range of empirical evidence, practitioners' insights, and policy perspectives, this book carefully examines the role of resource efficiency in reconciling environmental and economic considerations. It also discusses the critical role of resource efficiency investments in mitigating climate change and enabling sustainable development. Featuring expert insights from academia, the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, this book provides a policy oriented guide, reference, and toolbox for unlocking the potential of resource efficiency. To this end, it identifies practical measures for overcoming barriers and creating smart incentives for leveraging resource efficiency investments. Overall, this book brings together evidence to develop innovative ideas and strategies for improving the efficient use of resources and advancing clean and sustainable development. "This book is an important and timely contribution", Angel Gurria, Secretary General, OECD
Download or read book Policy Guidance on Resource Efficiency written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report responds to the request by G7 Leaders at the Schloss Elmau Summit in June 2015, for the OECD to develop policy guidance on resource efficiency.
Download or read book The Myth of Resource Efficiency written by John M. Polimeni and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Jevons Paradox', which was first expressed in 1865 by William Stanley Jevons in relation to use of coal, states that an increase in efficiency in using a resource leads to increased use of that resource rather than to a reduction. This has subsequently been proved to apply not just to fossil fuels, but other resource use scenarios. For example, doubling the efficiency of food production per hectare over the last 50 years (due to the Green Revolution) did not solve the problem of hunger. The increase in efficiency increased production and worsened hunger because of the resulting increase in population. The implications of this in today's world are substantial. Many scientists and policymakers argue that future technological innovations will reduce consumption of resources; the Jevons Paradox explains why this may be a false hope. This is the first book to provide a historical overview of the Jevons Paradox, provide evidence for its existence and apply it to complex systems. Written and edited by world experts in the fields of economics, ecological economics, technology and the environment, it explains the myth of efficiency and explores its implications for resource usage (particularly oil). It is a must-read for policymakers, natural resource managers, academics and students concerned with the effects of efficiency on resource use.
Download or read book Resource Efficiency written by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and published by United Nations. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report documents many examples of best practices for increasing the resource efficiency of different sectors from countries around the world. Key findings show that policies and initiatives to improve resource efficiency and tackle climate change can reduce global resource extraction by up to 28 per cent globally in 2050, against the baseline. In addition to slower growth in resource extraction, such policy actions can also cut global greenhouse gas emissions by around 60 per cent, while also boosting the value of world economic activity by 1 per cent.
Download or read book The Jevons Paradox and the Myth of Resource Efficiency Improvements written by and published by Routledge. This book was released on with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Resource Efficiency written by James West and published by UN. This book was released on 2013 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report provides more detailed data and analysis, specific to China, over the report provided in 2011 on Asia and the Pacific (UNEP 2011). It can be thought of as a single country focus version of that report, and so the structure is broadly similar. For most sections the base data used is simply the China specific data assembled for the production of (UNEP 2011), and so covers the same time period of 1970 to 2005. The exception is the material flows data, which has had a major update and revision performed. The time series for material flows data has been extended to cover 1970 to 2008.
Download or read book Resource Efficiency written by Paul Ekins and published by UN. This book was released on 2016 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite enormous progress in the past decades towards improving human prosperity and well-being, this has come at the lasting cost of degradation of the natural environment and depletion of natural resources. Meeting the needs of a growing and increasingly affluent population, will require natural resource extraction to increase from 85 to 186 billion tons by 2050. This can cause irreversible environmental damage and endanger the capacity of Earth to continue to provide resources which are essential for human survival and development. Analysis in the report shows that policies and initiatives to improve resource efficiency and tackle climate change can reduce global resource extraction by up to 28 per cent while also boosting the value of world economic activity by 1 per cent in 2050, against the baseline. Such policy actions can also cut global greenhouse gas emissions by around 60 per cent in 2050 relative to 2015 levels. This report has been produced by the UNEP's International Resource Panel in response to a request by leaders of the G7 nations in the context of efforts to promote resource efficiency as a core element of sustainable development. The report conducts a rigorous survey to assess and articulate the prospects and solutions for resource efficiency. It considers how more efficient use of resources can contribute to economic growth, employment and development, at the same time as reducing the world's use of materials, energy, biomass and water, and the resulting environmental impacts. The report documents many examples of best practices for increasing the resource efficiency of different sectors from countries around the world. The challenge for policy-makers is to learn from and scale up these good practices, and to conceive and implement a set of transformative policies that will enable countries to reap the associated social, environmental and economic benefits.
Download or read book Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060 Economic Drivers and Environmental Consequences written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents global projections of materials use and their environmental consequences, providing a quantitative outlook to 2060 at the global, sectoral and regional levels for 61 different materials (biomass resources, fossil fuels, metals and non-metallic minerals). It explains the ...
Download or read book Resources Efficiency and Globalization written by P. Dimitratos and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-02-12 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International business for the modern firm has to compromise the need to use limited resources and achieve efficiency in the global marketplace. This book examines these issues from the viewpoint of the internationalized SME, the big multinational and the local subsidiary drawing on research conducted in different countries.
Download or read book The Jevons Paradox and the Myth of Resource Efficiency Improvements written by John M. Polimeni and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jevons Paradox, which was first expressed in 1865 by William Stanley Jevons in relation to use of coal, states that an increase in efficiency in using a resource leads to increased use of that resource rather than to a reduction. This has subsequently been proved to apply not just to fossil fuels, but other resource use scenarios. For example, doubling the efficiency of food production per hectare over the last 50 years (due to the Green Revolution) did not solve the problem of hunger. The increase in efficiency increased production and worsened hunger because of the resulting increase in population. The implications of this in todays world are substantial. Many scientists and policymakers argue that future technological innovations will reduce consumption of resources; the Jevons Paradox explains why this may be a false hope. This is the first book to provide a historical overview of the Jevons Paradox, provide evidence for its existence and apply it to complex systems. Written and edited by world experts in the fields of economics, ecological economics, technology and the environment, it explains the myth of efficiency and explores its implications for resource usage (particularly oil). It is a must-read for policymakers, natural resource managers, academics and students concerned with the effects of efficiency on resource use.
Download or read book Urban Transformations written by Sigrun Kabisch and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book addresses urban transformations towards sustainability in light of challenges of global urbanization processes and the consequences of global environmental change. The aim is to show that urban transformations only succeed if both innovative scientific solutions and practice-oriented governance approaches are developed. This assumption is addressed by providing theoretical insights and empirical evidence pointing particularly at 3 concepts or qualities which are determined here as being central for achieving urban sustainability: resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience. Urban case studies from several international research projects illustrate our conceptual approach of urban transformations towards sustainable development. Thus, the book reaches far beyond a mere additive description of single case studies. It incorporates the results of condensed synthesis, resulting from comparisons and evaluations. It provides, based on cross-cutting reflection of single cases and different scales and methods of analysis, general and transferable findings. They do not only consider the scientific sphere but deliberately go beyond it discussing transferability of knowledge into practice, governance options and the feasibility of policy strategies in order to pave the way for sustainable urban transformations to happen today and in the future.
Download or read book International Trade in Resources written by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and published by United Nations. This book was released on 2016-02-08 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tasked with building and sharing knowledge on how to improve management of the world’s resources, UNEP’s International Resource Panel (IRP) turns its attention to the world trading system and its implications for global resource efficiency. In this report entitled ‘‘International Trade in Resources: A biophysical assessment’’, the IRP examines how efficient the current system of world trade is in distributing resources from the geographical locations of supply to the locations of demand. By examining trade from a biophysical (versus an economic) viewpoint, the authors of the report seek to assess whether or not trade allows commodities to be obtained from countries where their production requires fewer resources and generates a smaller amount of wastes and emissions.
Download or read book Resources for our Future written by Rob Weterings and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2013-11-14 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural resources, including minerals, water, energy and arable land, are the basis of human society. Throughout the 20th century, the growing population has led to an increase in the use of fossil fuels by a factor of 12, and to the extraction of 34 times more material resources. As a consequence, Earth’s climate is changing, fish stocks and forests are shrinking, the prices of energy resources and critical materials are rising, and species are becoming extinct. If the population grows as expected and the mean per capita consumption doubles by the year 2050, it is most probable that humanity will experience the limits to growth.
Download or read book Resource Efficiency Complexity and the Commons written by Bruce Lankford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The efficient use of natural resources is key to a sustainable economy, and yet the complexities of the physical aspects of resource efficiency are poorly understood. In this challenging book, the author proposes a major advance in our understanding of this topic by analysing resource efficiency and efficiency gains from the perspective of common pool resources, applying this idea particularly to water resources and its use in irrigated agriculture. The author proposes a novel concept of "the paracommons", through which the savings of increased resource efficiency can be viewed. In effect he asks; "who gets the gain of an efficiency gain?" By reusing, economising and avoiding losses, wastes and wastages, freed up resources are available for further use by four ‘destinations’; the same user, parties directly connected to that user, the wider economy or returned to the common pool. The paracommons is thus a commons of – and competition for – resources salvaged by changes to the efficiency of natural resource systems. The idea can be applied to a range of resources such as water, energy, forests and high-seas fisheries. Five issues are explored: the complexity of resource use efficiency; the uncertainty of efficiency interventions and outcomes; destinations of freed up losses, wastes and wastages; implications for resource conservation; and the interconnectedness of users and systems brought about by efficiency changes. The book shows how these ideas put efficiency on a par with other dimensions of resource governance and sustainability such as equity, justice, resilience and access.
Download or read book Examining the Intersection of Circular Economy Forestry and International Trade written by Gopalakrishnan, Badri Narayanan and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2021-01-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable development has always been a contested concept and has been extensively debated over the last 30 years with new classifications arising since then. There was a previous push for the radical transformations of the market economy to downscale production and consumption that would increase human well-being and enhance ecological conditions. Because of this conflict, there was a need for a new model that challenges and could be the alternative for the liner economy; this new model is called the circular economy. A circular economy aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. It gained its ground in the era of disruptive technological advancement and a dynamic global value chain. By supporting resource-efficient industrial models, the circular economy preserves and improves natural capital, optimizes the value of resources, and abolishes negative environmental externalities such as pollution. Examining the Intersection of Circular Economy, Forestry, and International Trade explores the link between the circular economy and various aspects of the business and environment to understand the usage and viability of adapting the circular economy from a business perspective. The chapters highlight the transition to the circular economy, its implementation across society, its intersection with forestry and international trade, and the solutions and challenges of the circular economy. This book is aimed at researchers in the field of business management, economics, and environmental studies along with practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students looking for more information on the various fields impacting the circular economy as well as the implementation, usage, and viability of a widespread adoption of a circular economy.
Download or read book Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity written by Raimund Bleischwitz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
