How does material efficiency create value for businesses?
What do the following key material efficiency strategies mean concretely for business models: more intensive use, lifetime extension, material substitution, better recycling and efficient design?
How can the buildings and mobility sectors implement more intensive use strategies for existing housing and vehicles?
What are key policy incentives for “more intensive use” and other approaches to material efficiency?
In this #GGKPwebinar, experts from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, International Resource Panel (IRP), World Economic Forum (WEF), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the private sector talk through new material efficiency strategies for the housing and mobility sectors.
The webinar also features a presentation of Resource Efficiency and Climate Change Implications Business, an addition to the recent IRP report Resource Efficiency and Climate Change: Material Efficiency Strategies for a Low-Carbon Future, by authors Edgar Hertwich and Reid Lifset.
Presentation
Recording
Speaker quotes
“Working with the World Bank, we are creating the sustainable leadership coalition and the single most important goal of the coalition was to influence the building codes and standards so that even if a builder did not know what it is to build green, if he followed the building codes and standards, he would end up building green." —Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer, Mahindra Group
"We believe there needs to be a transition to what we call a CLIC world: circular, lean, inclusive and clean. It is important to look at which technologies are going to give you the most returns both in terms of the sustainability returns and the financial returns.” —Kristina Church, Head of Sustainable Solutions, Lombard Odier Investment Managers
“We can see that more intensive use is the most important, through ride sharing or car sharing, as well as shifting toward smaller, trip-appropriate vehicles.” —Edgar Hertwich, International Chair of Industrial Ecology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Executive Fellow at the Yale School of Environment
“Current market conditions and policies did not incentivize material efficiency. Some policies keep the price of materials artificially low and therefore limit the competitive value of saving materials.” —Reid Lifset, Research Scholar and Resident Fellow in Industrial Ecology at Yale University, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Industrial Ecology
“Focus is shifting from energy efficiency to material efficiency. Different players are adopting new ways to design products, they are adopting business model innovation... we believe that the industry can respond the new challenges.” —Martin Pauli, Germany Foresight Advisory Lead, ARUP
“Material efficiency strategies mean that resource-intensive systems such as housing and vehicles can be designed to deliver high quality services at much lower material base through leaner design, better recycling of materials and better repair of using different materials.” —Janez Potočnik, Co-chair of the International Resource Panel and Partner at SYSTEMIQ
"Cars are a very underutilized asset - utilised maybe 2 to 3% of the time. Mobility as a service could be ride sharing and car sharing... there are different models out there and they’re especially popular with millennials.” —Christoph Wolff, Head of Shaping the Future of Mobility and Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum
Speakers
Kristina Church, Head of Sustainable Solutions, Lombard Odier Investment Managers
Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer, Mahindra Group
Edgar Hertwich, International Chair of Industrial Ecology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Executive Fellow at the Yale School of Environment
Reid Lifset, Research Scholar and Resident Fellow in Industrial Ecology at Yale University, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Industrial Ecology
Martin Pauli, Germany Foresight Advisory Lead, ARUP
Christoph Wolff, Head of Shaping the Future of Mobility and Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum
Moderated by Janez Potočnik, Co-chair of the International Resource Panel and Partner at SYSTEMIQ