Slides of my talk at LCM, August 28-31, the dahlem cube, Berlin

1. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker Co-Chair Circular Economy, Cascade Use and Efficiency as Pillars of a Factor Five World

2. Christopher „Kit“ Strange 9 Nov. 1954 - 12 Aug. 2011 Founder and Director of the Resource Recovery Forum I dedicate this lecture to Kit Strange, one of the great pioneers of resource recovery

3. Life Cycle Management is likely to become the standard of management, in a world of 7 billion people and of limited resources.

4. In Japan, the „Cyclical Economy“ is nothing very new. And China, in 2009, has more or less copied the Japanese Cyclical Economy Law.

5. Recycling is great. But it‘s only a facet of a much larger transition. I am talking about a new „ Kondratiev Cycle“ Five such cycles have been described do far.

6. The sixth big cycle ought to be “green” (after Charlie Hargroves,, Australia) Mechanization Steel & railroads Electricity, chemicals,cars TV, aviation, computers, Biotech IT Resource productivity, renew.energies, green system design.

7. Global warming leaves us no other choice. Let us briefly have a look at climate.

9. . We seem to be destabilizing Greenland. (Freshwater coverage during Summers 1992 and 2002)

10. Sea level rise can take catastrophic speed! (after Michael Tooley. Global sea-levels: floodwaters mark sudden rise. Nature 342 (6245), p 20 - 21 1989)

11. Areas in red are under water if the Greenland ice breaks off Bangladesh Florida

12. Asia‘s vibrant growth centres are mostly at the coast!

13. After Fukushima, the dream is gone that nuclear energy can beat global warming. Fukushima nuclear accident 11 March, 2011 ( NTV Japan) Fallout after 7 days (Blog alexanderhiggins.com)

14. Why are developing countries thinking they should first develop and deal with climate later ? It is the convenient paradigm of the Kuznets curve of pollution

15. Alas, so far there isn‘t even a Kuznets Curve of decarbonization!

16. We have yet to create it „ rich and carbon free“

17. And then make developing countries „ tunnel through that curve!“ „ rich and carbon free“

18. A similar challenge exists for solid materials: DMC (Domestic Material Consumption) goes with GDP

19. Also here, we have to create the Kznets Curve. (that‘s the Cyclical Economy challenge!)

20. And encourage developing countries tunneling through that Curve!

21. Sustainable development can be said to mean small ecological footprints and a high Human Development Index (HDI) 0 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 HDI Ecological footprints (hectares) 2 4 6 8 10 The sustainability rectangle High HDI Small ecol. footprints

22. Alas, only one country currently populates the sustainability rectangle Cuba

23. Now I am proposing an answer to that challenge: A factor of five in the increase of resource productivity could pull or push most countries into sustainability! 0 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 HDI Ecol. Footprints (hectares per person) 2 4 6 8 10 The sustainability rectangle High HDI Small footprints

24. Factor Five is a book documenting that technologies and policies are available for a five fold improvement! But many other authors come to similar or more ambitious postulates. December, 2009 March, 2010 October, 2010

25. Looking at critical metals, Kohmei Halada says a factor of five is not enough. A factor of eight by 2050 will be needed to avoid disastrous shortages. Halada, K. 2007. Ecomaterials go into the next stage

26. Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek Former Vice President, Wuppertal Institute, says we need at least a factor of ten in improving material productivity.

27. But for that Factor Ten he allows a reduction of ‚ecological rucksacks‘. A ton of copper typically has an ecological rucksack of 300 tons, chiefly of tailings left at the copper mine. Hence recycling and good loife cycle management dramatically reduces the rucksacks!

29. Recycling also helps reduce CO 2 . 8 dark bars sum up to 6m t of CO 2 saved in a year by one recycling company (ALBA). Source: Fraunhofer UMSICHT. 2010 Recycling für den Klimaschutz

30. The Blue Economy Das Buch On cascade use of materials and energy, the most fascinating approach is Gunter Pauli‘s: Building the Blue Economy 10 years, 100 innovations, 100 million jobs From over 2.000 innovations, he selected 100 that are published on a weekly basis at www.blue.economy.de Also here, factors of more than five are found. The Blue Economy

31. Very popular, - but with some smashing (and unnecessary) critique of efficiency: cradle to cradle.

32. Recycling can also help profits. A recent study shows that material resources are more expensive to business than human labour! Source: MaRess Report, Wuppertal Institute, 2010

33. The International Resource Panel works on this agenda of decoupling economic well-being from the use of natural resources and energy

34. But so far, we cannot find much decoupling. Here are expenditures for food, mobility, clothing etc. plotted against carbon foot-prints. It‘s straight lines everywhere.

35. Two metal reports of the Panel, on Metal Stocks in Society, 2010, and Recycling Rates … … also contain depressing results, such as …

36. … that specialty metals recycling rates are below 1%!!

37. Well, some decoupling is actually happening. But it is only relative decoupling. GDP grew faster than global material extraction in these four categories

38. Let us now have a brief look into the „ Factor Five World“

39. Amory Lovins’ “Hypercar”: 1,2 l/100km Today’s fleet 6-12 l/100km

40. “ Passive houses”: a factor of ten more heat efficient

41. Refurbishing existing buildings Upper row: Photographs Lower: Thermograms

42. LED replacing incandescent bulbs: a factor of 10 Philips 7W Master LED Energy efficiency

43. Seasonal diets, organic farming, a little less beef

44. From using water once to purifying (recycling) it Water efficiency

45. From flood irrigation to advanced drip irrigation Water efficiency (Source: www.driptech.com)

46. From urban sprawl to high density cities

47. From rotten trains to high speed trains

48. Carbon efficiency From Portland cement to geopolymer cement

49. Aluminium recycled instead of from bauxite Energy & material efficiency Source: www.pitoipa.de

50. From excessive mining to the “cyclical economy” Minerals efficiency

51. Resource productivities vary widely, even inside the EU. So Factor Five is also a matter of technological maturity. Source: Schepelmann et al 2009

52. Solid waste transition (in 100 years) from ashes to product waste, where recycling makes sense!

53. Urban mining, now popular in Japan A ton of ore from a gold mine yields about 5 grams of gold, but a ton of cellphones can yield 150 grams of gold.

54. Specialty metals recovery: they come in groups around familiar metals such as copper, lead, tin, zinc or platinum Source: Hagelüken, Umicore

55. Picture from: Metal detectors Recovering metals from the dustbin using detectors

56. Let us finally turn to the policy of making the new the Kondratiev cycle happen. Mechanization Steel & railroads Electricity, chemicals,cars TV, aviation, computers, Biotech IT Resource productivity, renew. energy, green system design.

57. Of course, recycling laws including the Green Dot system, will help. But laws can turn bureaucratic. After many years of studying environmental legislation, I cam e toa slightly more radical (and less bureaucratic) answer.

59. Labour productivity has increased twentyfold since 1850. It is not utopian to think of resource productivity increasing tenfold in 100 years and fivefold in 50 years!

60. Labour poductivity rose in parallel with labour costs This suggests a strategy of actively but slowly elevating Resource prices, in parallel with resource productivity increases.

61. Prices of industrial commodities & energy, in constant dollars Over 200 years resource prices were falling . Recent price hikes just brought us back into the lower confidence interval! 2000-2004

62. Energy and resource taxes make recycling more profitable, - and mining less. Some degree of international harmonization is desirable both ecologically and economically. Border tax adjustments are likely to be tolerated by the WTO. Resource tax revenues can be recycled inside one economic sector (Swedish SO 2 tax).

63. A predictable trajectory of slowly rising energy and resource prices in a country or region will attract immense investments into the efficiency revolution. And this is my final conclusion. Something to reflect on in the LCM community.

64. Thank you for your attention!