Revolutionising resource use: measuring radical improvements in resource productivity
Revolutionising resource use: measuring radical improvements in resource productivity
Judith RyserJudith Ryser, Cityscope Europe, 1 Cowley Street, London SW1P 3NB, UK. Tel: 44 (0) 20 7222 8760; Fax: 44 (0) 20 7976 8297.
Keywords: Sustainable development, Resource management, Green issues
Two odd bedfellows, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Green Alliance (GA), produced exciting and potentially explosive chemistry between commerce and idealism. In one day (14 February 2001), they aimed to develop a universal aggregate indicator able to measure "resource productivity" in all economic and environmental sectors of activity, at any time and place, for any time horizon[1]. It was to clarify how green arguments and altruism could change consumer behaviour to save the planet for future generations.
The "resources" to achieve this single goal were ministerial policies, David Pearce's Keynote address[2], expert opinions with panels of respondents[3], and a diverse audience of over 140 participants invited to voice their views in plenary debates and at workshops. Together, they were to select six overarching economic and environmental goals, four functional criteria qualifying a single metric of resource productivity to achieve these goals, and six economic and environmental factors to measure progress towards greater sustainability of both the input and the output of the economy.
Government policy of revolutionising resource use
Patricia Hewitt (DTI) showed the need to move from labour productivity, i.e. output per head, to resource and environmental productivity to remain competitive globally. A world population of 9 billion by 2050 defies the mere 1 per cent of raw materials in use after six months in the developed world. The government's way round the dilemma between economic growth and environmental damage is to decouple economic growth from energy use and living standards. Waste trading (which the Financial Times estimates at $128 billion by 2003 globally) on the Internet is one innovative solution.
Proposed government instruments were:
fiscal measures which aim to curb energy and resource use by shifting the burden of taxation towards outcome;
regulatory measures to encourage innovation;
direct support of business, mainly SMEs which represent half of UK's production.
Bottom-up economic, environmental and social regulations of sustainable development are being devised EU-wide. Confirming the DTI's green credentials,its White Paper on Sustainable Development aims to integrate resource and environmental productivity with business strategy and sectoral public strategies into a coherent whole. A better metric is expected to assist implementation.
The argument
Although most panellists disagreed with the proposed positivist economic vision of resource productivity, they did not include human resources in the concept of "resource productivity", nor refer to 30 years of environmental debate[4]. Leaving the mammon of economic growth intact, the search for a single way of quantifying complex phenomena, and the call for more research awoke a feeling of deja-vu. The workshops came up with a single metric (gross national product per capita over greenhouse gases minus material resources):
GDP/capitaGHG - MR
The difficulty of capturing culture based notions such as quality of life in a single quantitative indicator became apparent. Agreed paraphrases were: "All have access to resources needed to sustain a healthy lifestyle"; and "The use of renewable resources should not exceed the rate of renewability and the use of non-renewables should be inferior to the rate of generating substitutes".
Time was rather ignored as a resource. Predictive indicators were considered unsuitable to deal with present time, hence current investment decisions and innovation strategies. The greatest omissions were power and control and their role in devising and calibrating resource and environmental productivity indicators. Perhaps a rigorous definition of quality of life or sustainability should remain an unachievable goal.
For Michael Meacher (DETR) unsustainability was to use ten tons of raw materials to produce one ton of finished products. As only natural disasters seem to interlock self interest and altruism political leadership has to spearhead change. "Factor four" should assist in reducing resource use fourfold without lowering living standards.
The clear message from the audience was that resource productivity indicators have to encompass equity and quality of life aspects at an international level. The resonance from business is one of opportunities. The protagonists of a resource productivity metric are keen meanwhile, to extend the debate to the general public and expect interactive debates on their Web sites.
Notes
- 1.
Professor David Pearce proposes a single indicators to measure resource productivity based on money values:
£Q – £e(Q) – £e(M,E)£M +£E
Output:£Q = money value of output Q£e(Q) = money value of emissions, waste, etc. from output e(Q)£e(M.E) = inputs not included in e(Q) i.e. e(M,E)
Input:£M = money value of materials£E = money value of energy
- 2.
David Pearce, Professor of Economics at UCL was a pioneer of environmental impact analysis when North Sea oil came on shore in the 1970s. He presented his paper on measuring resource productivity, published by the DTI and GA as a contribution to the DTI's Sustainable Development Strategy by "identifying ways of radically improving resource productivity so that rising economic prosperity is increasingly de-coupled from environmental impacts".
- 3.
Frans Berthout – SPRU; Robin Bidwell – Environmental Resources Management; Michael Jacobs, head of the Fabian Society; Eddie Hyams –industry position; Claude Fussler – World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD); Dr Peter White – Procter & Gamble; Martin Gibson,Director of Envirowise – UK government programme.
- 4.
For example, first 1972 UN environment conference, Barbara Ward's The Home of Man, ecological movements even in the USA, the call for energy efficiency and renewable resources after the 1970s oil shock, the Club of Rome's limits to growth, the environmental impact industry, the first 1976 Habitat conference. Do we find ourselves right there again at the dawn of the twenty-first century?
