مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Europe has the world’s highest netimports of resources per person, and its open economy relies heavily on imported energy and raw materials. Secure access to resources has become an increasingly strategic economic issue, while possible negative social and environmental impacts on third countries are an additional concern. In 2013, a total of 8.0 billion tonnes (McKinsey and Company, 2015) of materials were used by the European Union economy to create goods and services. In terms of value, this amounts to about 560 billion euros.1 This is why policy attention to natural resource security is growing worldwide with the aim of decreasing dependence on internationaltrade in securing raw materials and of minimising the risks associated to the rising prices of raw materials (European Commission, 2011; National Research Council, 2008).

Besides the implications of the fact that most materials extracted from the earth and utilised for economic purposes are not literally ‘consumed’ but become waste residuals that do not disappear and may cause environmental damage and result in unpaid social costs (Ayres and Kneese, 1969), experts have calculated that without a rethink of how materials are used in the current linear ‘take-make-dispose’ economy, the virgin stocks of several key materials appear insufficient to sustain the modern ‘developed world’ quality of life for the global population under contemporary technology (Gordon et al., 2005). It is therefore necessary to move towards an industrialmodelthat decouples economic growth from material input, by using waste and bio-feedstock as inputs for industry:the circular economy. Circular Economy models maintain the added value in products for as long as possible and minimise waste. They keep resources within the economy when products no longer serve their functions so that materials can be used again and therefore generate more value (Pearce and Turner, 1990). Thus, circular business models create more value from each unit of natural resource compared to traditional linear models (Di Maio and Rem, 2015). In addition to secondary resources through recycling, advanced methodologies of design and manufacturing can produce the same functional value using less resources (natural resources and recycled resources alike).

According to Brundtland (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meettheir own needs. Resource effi- ciency can be considered one of the interpretations/consequences of Brundtland’s definition of sustainable development. Although it may seem odd to quote Brundtland’s statement on sustainable development so long after she made it and now that almost everyone is aware of it, we believe that this meaningful quotation has been translated so many times into derivatives that we have somehow lost track of the message she wanted to convey. Moreover, Brundtland’s statement helps us to clarify our definitions of both resource efficiency and stressed resources.