Materials: From High Consumption to More Sustainable Resource Use

• Author: Amit Kapur and Thomas E. Graedel
• Pages: 159-169

Chapter 11

Materials: From High Consumption to More

Sustainable Resource Use

Amit Kapur and Thomas E. Graedel

An aspect of sustainability that has received increased attention

since the Earth Summit at Rio in 1992 is the material resources that are

vital for economic growth. Sustainability with respect to use of re-

sources has three components:

•The relationship between rate of resource utilization and

overall stock of available virgin resources;

•Effectiveness of resource use in providing essential

services;

•The proportion of resources that leak from the economy

and the impact of that leakage on the environment.1

The first two topics reflect the sustainability of supply,and the third

affects the sustainability of the receiving ecosystems (a combination

of loss rate and ecosystem sensitivity). This chapter reports on trends

in resource use in the United States, focusing on the 15 years follow-

ing the Rio Earth Summit, and particularly the years since 2002. It

concludes with suggestions for approaches that can improve sustain-

ability in the use of materials.

The United States leads the world in the consumption of natural re-

sources and, in most cases, in the use of natural resources per capita,

including fossil fuels and materials.2In many cases, those resources

are imported from other countries and other continents,3and

sustainability on the supply side requires that those resources remain

sufficient and that the countries holding them remain willing to supply

them. On the demand side, it is imperative at the same time to reduce

the need for nonrenewable resources and to make the use of those re-

sources more efficient and less harmful to the environment.

The sustainability movement in the United States is slowly shifting

attitudes on both the demand and supply sides. Consumers are asking

for greener products and cleaner technologies. Simultaneously,a shift

is occurring in our approach to production systems. The life cycle

analysis of products, processes, and materials is providing feedback to

159