Abstract
Without natural resources, life itself is impossible. From birth to death, natural resources, transformed for human use, feed, clothe, shelter, and transport us. …Without abundant resources, prosperity is out of reach.
Gifford Pinchot
The previous chapter addressed the sustainability implications of economic affluence, the A term in the IPARX identity (Equation (1.1), repeated below for convenience). Because the economy is society’s metabolism, economic growth and increasing affluence mean increasing use of natural resources and emission of wastes. This chapter explores the sustainability implications of acquisition and consumption of resources, which, when divided by GDP, becomes the resource intensity of the economy (R).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl, and Marina Fischer-Kowalski. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics, 68(10):2696–2705, 2009. doi: j.ecolecon.2009.05.007.
International Energy Agency. The role of critical minerals in clean energy transitions. Flagship Report, International Energy Agency, May 2021. https://www.iea.org/reports/ the-role- of- critical- minerals- in- clean-energy- transitions
European Commission Director General for Internal Market Industry Entrepreneurship and SMEs. Critical raw materials resilience: Charting a path towards greater security and sustainability. Communication COM(2020) 474 final, European Commission, March 9, 2020. https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/42849
T A. Graedel and B. R. Allenby. Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Engineering. Prentice Hall, Boston, MA, 2010. https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/ Graedel-Industrial- Ecology- and- Sustainable- Engineering/PGM121237.html
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. The entropy law and the economic process in retrospect. Eastern Economic Journal, 12(1):3–25, 1986. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40357380
Robert U. Ayres. The second law, the fourth law, recycling, and limits to growth. Ecological Economics, 29:473–483, 1999. doi: 10.1016/S0921-8009(98)00098-6.
United States Congress, House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Environmental Policy Division, Task Force on Energy, Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development. Energy—The Ultimate Resource: Study Submitted to the Task Force on Energy of the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-Second Congress, First Session. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. https://books.google.com/books?id=zJe65vJMCi0C
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Energy flow charts. https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/ commodities/energy Accessed August 11, 2021.
Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina. Our world in data: Global direct primary energy consumption, 2021. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy?time=earliest..2019&country=~OWID_WRL
U.S. Energy Information Agency. International Energy Data. https://www.eia.gov/ international/data/world Accessed August 11, 2021.
Adam Brandt. Testing Hubbert. Energy Policy, 35(5):3074–3088, 2007. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2006.11.004.
David Rutledge. Estimating long-term world coal production with logit and probit transforms. International Journal of Coal Geology, 85(1):23–33, January 2011. doi: 10.1016/j.coal.2010.10.012.
David Rutledge. David Rutledge website. http://rutledge.caltech.edu Accessed August 11, 2021.
UK Department for Business, Energy, & Industrial Strategy. Historical coal data: Coal production, availability, and consumption 1853 to 2020, July 29, 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/historical-coal-data-coal- production-availability-and-consumption Accessed December 21, 2021.
Lukas Hardt, Anne Owen, Paul Brockway, Matthew K. Heun, John Barrett, Peter G. Taylor, and Timothy J. Foxon. Untangling the drivers of energy reduction in the UK productive sectors: Efficiency or offshoring? Applied Energy, 223:124–133, 2018. doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.03.127.
Global clean water desalination alliance. H2O minus CO2 concept paper. Technical Report, 2015.
Valentina Bisinella, Paola Federica Albizzati, Thomas Fruergaard Astrup, and Anders Damgaard. Life cycle assessment of grocery carrier bags. Technical Reprort, Danish Environmental Protection Agency, 2018.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Van Antwerp, J., Heun, M.K. (2022). Resource Intensity of Economic Activity (R). In: A Framework for Sustainability Thinking. Synthesis Lectures on Sustainable Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79179-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79179-6_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-79174-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-79179-6
eBook Packages: Synthesis Collection of Technology (R0)eBColl Synthesis Collection 11