Abstract
The industrial sector emits almost 43 percent of the global
anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to produce materials and
products. Furthermore, energy is used to move materials and products and
process the waste. Hence, a large amount of energy is consumed and CO2
is emitted to sustain our materials system. Until recently, studies
investigating mitigation options focused on changes in the energy
system. For industrial processes most studies evaluate how the current
materials system can be maintained producing fewer greenhouse gas
emissions. Three elements of a strategy to improve the long-term
materials productivity are the reduction of dissipative uses of
non-biodegradable materials, secondly, the re-design of products to use
less material or design for re-use or recycling, and thirdly, develop
more efficient technologies for material conversion and recycling. This
will reduce or eliminate the need to extract virgin materials from the
environment, and reduce CO2 emissions from the energy-intensive
production processes. To assess measures to reduce materials
consumption, fossil fuels consumption and CO2 emissions, detailed
understanding of the material system is needed. The lifecycle of
materials has to be investigated including all branches of industry with
all the inputs and outputs. We start with a discussion of materials and
the carbon cycle focusing on the contribution of materials to
anthropogenic carbon flows. We discuss CO2 emissions from energy use in
materials extraction and production, fossil (e.g. plastics) and biomass
carbon (e.g. lumber, paper) used as feedstock of materials, and mineral
sources (e.g. cement). We discuss opportunities to reduce CO2 emissions
by improving the efficiency with which society uses materials through
product design, material substitution, product reuse and material
recycling.
Original language | English |
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Pages | B51F-03 |
Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2003 |
Keywords
- 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE (New category)
- 6399 General or miscellaneous
- 9350 North America