ALBERT

Description: Sustainable development is the globally embraced paradigm for integrating environment and development policies. Agreement ends with attempts at operationalizing the elusive notion of sustainability. A contentious debate among "environmentalists" and "environmental economists" has brought about a confusing proliferation of indicators and policy advice on sustainable development. Greening the monetary national accounts could moderate the debate by generating concepts and indicators which translate environmental concerns into the language of widely used economic variables. The implementation of sustainable growth and development requires more. "Eco-nomic" instruments of environmental cost internalization need to be combined with environmental legislation and regulation. Such reconciliation of environmental and economic policies should be supported by a "social compact" between government and civil society. The sustained implementation of sustainable development depends on it.

Description: In this paper the results of an analysis of the material intensity of advanced composite materials are presented. The analysis is based on the MIPS-concept of the Wuppertal Institute which allows the calculation of the overall material intensity of products and services. It can be shown that the production of one kg of E-Glass fibers is connected with the consumption of 6.2 kg materials, 95 kg water and 2.1 kg oxygen which is of similar size compared to the inputs required in steel production. Material inputs required to produce one kg of p-aramid are 37 kg of materials and 19.6 kg air. Values for carbon fibers are even higher yielding to 61.1 kg of abiotic materials and 33.1 kg of air. Similarly, the production of epoxy resins is connected with larger material flows than the production of polyester resins. Of core materials, inputs per kg for PVCfoam exceed those in PUR-foam production by a factor of 1.4 in water to 2.3 in abiotic material consumption. However, ecologically decisive are not the inputs per kg but the material input per service unit. Therefore, the material input per service unit computed for the body of a passenger ship and a robot arm are compared with alternative steel and aluminium versions. Both examples show that in the case of significant inputs during the user phase of products, even a more material intensive investment in the production phase can yield significant ecological benefits over the whole life-cycle compared to metal versions. Improvements can easily reach a factor of two albeit significant potential for engine optimizations have still been neglected. Results already include the actual recycling quota of metals whereas for composites only virgin material has been calculated as any form of real recycling does not actually exist but only certain types of downrecycling. Of those treatment options, first material recycling and second the use in blast furnaces would lead to better results in resource productivity than incineration and landfills. The paper finally draws some conclusions about the potential advantages of material substitution in the automotive industry. Due to the rather short real operation time of cars during their user phase - around six months - an investment in advanced composite materials in car production only results in a significant improvement of the overall eco-efficiency of cars if it allows a substantial weight reduction of the overall vehicle.

Description: In the discourse about sustainable development, "constant natural capital" is frequently referred to as a criterion for ecological sustainability. But what is "natural capital"? The concept will be analyzed by presenting arguments in favour of using the term and different versions of sustainability (strong and weak). Subsequently, a critique of the "natural capital" concept is brought forward, from an ecological as well as from an economic perspective. Following this critique, the use of material inputs and the material input per unit of service (MIPS) as a measure for the environmental impact potential is suggested. Dematerialisation is understood to be an alternative management rule for sustainability. In conclusion, a change of perspective is proposed. Due to the conceptual and measurement problems associated with the "constant-natural-capital" criterion (which refers to a stock), it seems more reasonable from a scientific as well as from a practical perspective to add flows (i.e. material inputs) to a decision criterion for whether a development is sustainable or not.

Description: The European Commission has established the Eco Management and Auditing Scheme (EMAS) to promote and institutionalize corporate environmental management and environmental audits. This article summarizes a study primarily concerned with the execution of an ecoaudit in a medium-sized furniture enterprise according to the rules of EMAS. Material flow accounting was used to assess and analyze the "gate-to-gate" and "cradle-to-grave" environmental impacts related to the firm's products and activities. A resource management strategy was developed that permits the determination of methods for firm-specific material flow management, product management, and ecological product design to improve environmental performance as seen from the vantage point of resource efficiency.

Description: It is not the scarcity of resources that constitutes environmental problems, but their use, the physical throughput of our economies. Material flows are a proxy for the totality of the unspecific environmental risks from human activities. As a strategic goal, an increase of the life-cycle-wide resource productivity by a factor 10 is suggested, including the materials bought and sold and the not-valued materials: we have to take into account the product itself and its "ecological rucksack". Material flows are best measured at the input side of the economy, where their number as well as the number of entry gates is limited. Thus here regulation and economic incentives can work more efficiently and less bureaucratically than today. The material intensity of products and services can be expressed as MIPS, the material input per unit of service, and as TMR, the total material requirement on the macro level, an important element in physical input–output tables.