Toward a sustainable materials system

An unprecedented effort is needed to achieve sustainable materials production and use Global annual resource use reached nearly 90 billion metric tons in 2017 and may more than double by 2050. This growth is coupled with a shift of materials extraction from Europe and North America to Asia. In 2017,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 360; no. 6396; pp. 1396 - 1398
Main Authors Olivetti, Elsa A, Cullen, Jonathan M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 29.06.2018
Subjects
Biodiversity
Climate change
Land use
Materials management
Sustainability
Sustainable materials
Asia
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Summary:An unprecedented effort is needed to achieve sustainable materials production and use Global annual resource use reached nearly 90 billion metric tons in 2017 and may more than double by 2050. This growth is coupled with a shift of materials extraction from Europe and North America to Asia. In 2017, 60% of all materials were extracted in Asia, and extraction is expected to rise substantially in Africa over the next decade. Local extraction and processing helps to improve standards of living in the developing world, but also leads to important environmental concerns. Globally, materials production and consumption is coming up against environmental constraints in almost every domain, including species biodiversity, land-use change, climate impacts, and biogeochemical flows. Mitigating the impact of materials use is urgent and complex, necessitates proactive assessment of unintended consequences, and requires multidisciplinary systems approaches.
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ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.aat6821