Ressource efficiency Flashcards
1
Q
-Introduction & motivation
A
- Demand for many resources has increased significantly due to their growing importance for industrial and technological development
- Increasing pollution of environment
- Social impact of resource extraction (and use)
–> Efficient use of resources is needed
* Resource efficiency is established as a strategy
* Measures to reduce resource use, use resources efficiently as well as reduce environmental impacts
* Methods to assess those measures and reflect their resource efficiency
2
Q
Why is it important to measure resource efficiency?
A
- So far, resource efficiency is mainly an idea or a concept
- If you want to put resource efficiency into daily practice, you need to find ways to “measure” the resource efficiency of products, processes, industries or even regions and countries
Only what gets measured gets handled!
3
Q
What is resource efficiency?
A
- Resource efficiency in the context of sustainability Resource efficiency
- “Resource efficient” does not necessarily mean “environmentally friendly”
- In the context of sustainability, resource efficiency is an intersection of economy and environment environmental burden can be outweighed by value added
4
Q
- Resource efficiency – Global activities
A
- SDG’s:
o Target 8.4: Improve progressively, through 2030, global resource efficiency in consumption and production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, in accordance with the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production, with developed countries taking the lead
o Target 9.4: By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities
o Target 11.10 (originally 11b): By 2020, substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters, and develop and implement, in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 to 2030, holistic disaster risk management at all levels
o Target 12.2: By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources - European Union: Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources (2005)
5
Q
- What is a resource?
A
- According to Strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources:
o Raw materials
o Biomass
o Environment like water, soil, air
o Land
o Natural resources are material and non-material assets occurring in nature that are at some point in time deemed useful for humans.
Resource efficiency = economic value added/ resources input –> ratio
Aim: Achieving a value added with the lowest possible resource input
6
Q
- Conclusion - ressource efficiency
A
- The result of a resource efficiency calculation is dependent on:
A) The definition of resource efficiency
B) The definition of the term “resource input”
C) The selection of indicators for the quantification of value added (price, profit, life cycle costs, etc.) and environmental pollution (acidification, global warming, etc.) - Concept of resource efficiency can support sustainable development
- However, strong need for harmonizing terminology and calculation methods
7
Q
resource criticality
A
- rare Earth are available from a geological point of view
- challenge: China dominates the market, because they mine most of the mines and China imposed some trade barriers for rare earths price increased significantly but also the overall exported amount was reduced a lot of countries/ sectors did not had enough rare earth to produce their products
8
Q
- Where are the challenges with rare earths?
A
- China dominates the market as it mines most of rare earths in terms of quantity
- China imposed export restrictions, leading to high price increases and thus shortages in many companies / countries
The conflict peaked 2010-2013–WTO lawsuit, which forced China to lift its export duties in 201 - Situation relaxed slowly; also because in recent years other countries have begun to mine rare earths, e.g. the USA
- But:
o Rare earths are indispensable in the high technology industry, e.g. PC, batteries, e-mobility
o Rare earths can not usually be substituted by other metals
o Recycling rare earth products is technically and economically difficult
9
Q
- Criticality: Risk of supply disruption & vulnerability to supply disruption
A
- Supply disruption (supply risk)
- Vulnerability (potential socioeconomic impacts of supply disruption)
10
Q
- Supply risk
A
- Possible restrictions along the supply chain can lead to limited availability of resources
- Examples:
o Iron ore is availably geologically, but only 3 companies control its trade.
o Lithium is extracted from salt lakes. High demand could exceed production capacities
o Coltan is extracted in political instable countries e.g. Congo.
11
Q
- Vulnerability
A
- Impacts of supply disruption
- Examples:
o Import dependency
o Economic importance
12
Q
- Levels to assess criticality: Different levels of assessment:
A
- Macro level (country, regional)
- Meso level (company)
- Micro level (product)
13
Q
- Assessment on product level
A
- currently, three methods exist to assess criticality on product level within LCA:
o Geopolitical Supply Risk (GeoPolRisk) developed by Helbig et al. (2016) and Cimprich et al. (2017)
o University of Augsburg and University of Waterloo
o ESSENZ method developed by Bach et al. (2016) - TUB SEE
ESP method (outdated) by Schneider et al. (2014) –TUB SEE
14
Q
- Assessment on country level
A
- Many studies exist, from & for different countries
o European study
Vulnerability: Economic importance
Supply risk: concentration of primary supply from raw materials producing countries, considering their governance performance and trade aspects.
o SCARCE approach developed by TUB
Approach to determine criticality aspects on regional/country level
Applied to Germany and Europe
15
Q
ESSENZ method
A
- “Integrated method to comprehensively assess/measure resource efficiency“
- Development of method:
- Multidimensional evaluation beyond mass
o All sustainability dimensions are considered
o Also social aspects - Several industrial sectors
- Applicable indicators
- Considering the entire supply chain
