What is the term for unprocessed natural resources that are refined into end products?

Burden shifting 

Burden shifting occurs when consumption and production happen in different places. It means that the impacts driven by consumption are translocated to countries where production takes place. It typically occurs between 'developed' and 'developing' countries.

Related terms:  Problem shifting 

General 

Circular economy 

The circular economy is one in which the value of products, materials and resources is maintained in the economy for as long as possible, and the generation of waste is minimized. This is in contrast to a ‘linear economy’, which is based on the “extract, make and dispose” model of production and consumption. 

General 

Consumption

The use of products and services for (domestic) final demand, i.e. for households, government and investments. The consumption of resources can be calculated by attributing the life-cycle-wide resource requirements to those products and services (e.g. by input-output calculation). 

General 

Cradle-to-gate

Denotes the system boundaries of a life cycle assessment study that only covers the first stages of the life cycle, which in the IRP flagship report, Global Resources Outlook 2019, refers to the resource extraction and processing stage (including the full supply chain of all inputs and disposal phase of all outputs arising in these stages).

General

Cradle-to-grave

Denotes the system boundaries of a full life cycle assessment study, considering all life cycle stages, including raw material extraction, production, transport, use and final disposal. Also termed “life cycle perspective”.

General

Dematerialization 

Dematerialization ultimately describes decreasing the material requirements of whole economies. It requires (a) reducing the materialintensity of products and services, i.e. by increasing material efficiency, and (b) especially reducing the use of primary material resources (such as ores, coal, minerals, metals, etc.) by improving recycling and re-use of secondary materials (i.e. shifting to a circular economy). It is frequently regarded as a necessary condition for the sustainable development of economies and is synonymous with absolute resource decoupling.

General 

Ecosystem services

Ecosystem services are those functions and processes which ecosystems provide and which affect human well-being. They include (a) provisioning services such as food, water, timber, and fibre; (b) regulating services such as the regulation of climate, floods, disease, wastes, and water quality; (c) cultural services such as recreation, aesthetic enjoyment, and spiritual fulfilment; and (d) supporting services such as soil formation, photosynthesis, and nutrient cycling (MEA 2005).

General 

Efficiency 

Efficiency is a broad concept that compares the inputs to a system with its outputs; it essentially means achieving ―more with less‖. The Resource Panel often refers to resource, material, energy and water efficiency across all levels of society, i.e. the system can refer to a production process (producing more with less) or an entire economy (achieving more usefulness with total input). Efficiency includes activities to improve productivity (value added / input) and minimize intensity (input / value added).

See also: material efficiency, resource efficiency, water efficiency 

General 

Environmental Impacts

Harmful effects of human activities on ecosystems. In the IRP flagship report, Global Resources Outlook 2019, the following methods and impact categories are used to assess environmental impacts:

1. Climate change impacts: Greenhouse gas emissions are weighed according to the concentration change they produce in the atmosphere multiplied with the radiative forcing of the respective gas, a substance property describing how much energy the substance can absorb. This effect of altering the energy balance of the earth is accumulated over a defined time horizon (typically 100 years) and published by IPCC as “Global Warming Potentials, GWPs” (IPCC, 2013). Impacts are called climate change impacts, but are also known as a carbon footprint. All emissions are expressed as “kgCO2-equivalents”.

2. Ecotoxicity: Emissions of toxic substances are transported, degraded and transferred between various environmental compartments (air, water and soil), where they may lead to direct exposure (for example, inhalation of air with pollutants) or indirect exposure (for example, crop uptake of pollutants from soil and ingestion of crop as food). Toxic effects may occur after exposure.

3. Land-use related biodiversity loss: Land use reduces natural habitat size and degrades ecosystems, thereby leading to species extinctions.

4. Water stress: Water stress addresses the impacts of water consumption on the water resource as a flow resource.1 Additionally, absolute water scarcity (availability per area) is considered to combine natural and human-induced water stress in a single indicator (Boulay et al., 2018).

Footprints

Footprints can measure different types of pressures including resource use (such as materials and water), pollution emissions (including emission in air) and environmental impacts (climate change, water scarcity, biodiversity losses and so forth). In the context of the IRP flagship report, Global Resources Outlook 2019, the term footprints is used to represent the whole system of environmental pressures exerted by a human activity, including direct pressures occurring within the geographical boundary where the activity occurs and indirect/or supply chain pressures outside (transboundary ones).  

General

Industrial metabolism 

Societies exchange materials and energy with the surrounding natural systems and use them internally for various functions (building structures, providing energy etc.) in a similar way to the metabolism of plants, animals or humans. The ‗inputs‘ in industrial metabolism include resources such as raw materials (including fossil fuels), water, and air. These resource inputs are transformed into products (goods and services) and are finally disposed back to the natural system in the form of outputs; mainly solid wastes, waste water and air emissions (Schütz and Bringezu 2008). The term ―industrial metabolism‖ was coined by Ayres (1989). 

General 

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) 

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the assessment of impacts associated with all life stages of a product or service, i.e. from the cradle to the grave. It focuses on individual product and service systems (distinguishing it from Input-Output analysis) and as such is often used for comparing competing goods. It involves the quantification of all relevant inputs and outputs, so that where the system boundary is drawn may cause differences in the aggregation of total environmental burden and cause controversy, for instance, with the quantification of biofuels (i.e. whether or not to include indirect land use changes).  

General 

Life Cycle Perspective

A life cycle perspective includes consideration of the environmental aspects of an organization’s activities, products and services that it can control or influence. Stages in a life cycle include acquisition of raw materials, design, production, transportation/delivery, use, end of life treatment and final disposal (ISO, n.d.). Also termed “cradle-to-grave”.

General

Material flow analysis (MFA)

Material flow analysis (MFA) comprises a group of methods to analyse the physical flows of materials into, through and out of a given system. It can be applied at different levels of scale, i.e. products, firms, sectors, regions, and whole economies. The analysis may be targeted to individual substance or material flows, or to aggregated flows, e.g. of resource groups (fossil fuels, metals, minerals). Economy-wide MFA (ewMFA) is applied to whole economies and provides the basis for the derivation of indicators on the metabolic performance of countries in terms of material inputs and consumption (such as DMI, DMC, TMR, TMC). 

General 

Problem shifting 

Problem shifting is the displacement or transfer of problems between different environmental pressures, product groups, countries or over time.  

See also:  burden shifting  

General 

Rebound effect 

The rebound effect happens when a positive eco-innovation on the micro level leads to negative impacts on the meso/macro level. This can happen due to a change in consumer behaviour, i.e. consumers using more of an efficient product, which – at least partly - outweighs the efficiency improvements per unit of that product. 

General 

Resource decoupling 

Resource decoupling means delinking the rate of use of primary resources from economic activity. Absolute resource decoupling would mean that the Total Material Requirement of a country decreases while the economy grows. It follows the same principle as dematerialization, i.e. implying the use of less material, energy, water and land to achieve the same (or better) economic output. 

See also: decoupling, absolute decoupling, relative decoupling 

General 

Resource efficiency 

In general terms, resource efficiency describes the overarching goals of decoupling — increasing human well-being and economic growth while lowering the amount of resources required and negative environmental impacts associated with resource use. In other words, this means doing better with less. In technical terms, resource efficiency means achieving higher outputs with lower inputs and can be reflected by indicators such as resource productivity (including GDP/resource consumption). Ambitions to achieve a resource-efficient economy therefore refer to systems of production and consumption that have been optimized with regard to resource use. This includes strategies of dematerialization (savings, reduction of material and energy use) and re-materialization (reuse, remanufacturing and recycling) in a systems-wide approach to a circular economy, as well as infrastructure transitions within sustainable urbanization.

General 

Resource intensity 

Resource intensity depicts the amount of natural resources used to produce a certain amount of value or physical output. It is calculated as resource use / value added or as resource use / physical output. Resource intensity is the inverse of resource productivity.

See also: intensity, material intensity 

General 

Resource productivity

Resource productivity describes the economic gains achieved through resource efficiency. It depicts the value obtained from a certain amount of natural resources. As an indicator on the macro-economic level total resource productivity is calculated as GDP/TMR (OECD 2008). It may be presented together with indicators of labour or capital productivity. Resource productivity is the inverse of resource intensity.

See also: productivity, material productivity 

General 

Resources 

Resources — including land, water, air and materials — are seen as parts of the natural world that can be used in economic activities to produce goods and services. Material resources are biomass (like crops for food, energy and bio- based materials, as well as wood for energy and industrial uses), fossil fuels (in particular coal, gas and oil for energy), metals (such as iron, aluminium and copper used in construction and electronics manufacturing) and non-metallic minerals (used for construction, notably sand, gravel and limestone).

General 

Sustainable Resource Management 

Sustainable resource management means both (a) ensuring that consumption does not exceed levels of sustainable supply and (b) ensuring that the earth‘s systems are able to perform their natural functions (i.e. preventing disruptions like in the case of GHGs affecting the ability of the atmosphere to ‗regulate‘ the earth‘s temperature). It requires monitoring and management at various scales. The aim of sustainable resource management is to ensure the long-term material basis of societies in a way that neither resource extraction and use nor the deposition of waste and emissions will surpass the thresholds of a safe operating space.

General 

Systems approach

The system approach (1) considers the total material throughput of the economy from resource extraction and harvest to final disposal, and their environmental impacts, (2) relates these flows to activities in production and consumption across spatial scale, time, nexus and boundary dimensions, and (3) searches for leverage points for multi-beneficial changes (technological, social or organizational), all encouraged by policies to achieve sustainable production/consumption and multi-scale sustainable resource management.

General

Trade-off 

Trade-off describes a situation where one option occurs at the expense of another. The Resource Panel describes trade-offs between environmental impacts (e.g. renewable energy technology and critical metal consumption) as well as social, ecological and economic objectives (e.g. cropland expansion and biodiversity loss). 

General 

Bioenergy 

Bioenergy describes all types of biomass used to convert its energy content into useful energy (heat and power). It Includes crops and trees grown specifically for energetic purposes as well as agricultural residues, forest products waste and municipal waste that can be used to provide heat and power for households and industrial processing. 

Biofuels 

Biofuels 

Biofuels are combustible materials directly or indirectly derived from biomass, commonly produced from plants, animals and microorganisms but also from organic wastes. The Resource Panel uses the term biofuel to describe all uses of biomass for energetic purposes, meaning that biofuels may take solid, liquid or gaseous form. When the terms first, second or third-generation biofuels are used, they typically refer to biofuels used in the transport sector.

See also:  first-generation biofuels, second-generation biofuels, thirdgeneration biofuels

Biofuels 

Cascading use

Cascading use in general means a sequence of use phases with declining product value. Cascading allows the use of materials to be extended. For instance, using biomass as a production material first, then recycling it (several times) before finally recovering the energy content from the resulting waste at the end of its lifecycle. Such cascading systems may provide general advantages for climate change mitigation and ease land use pressure. 

Biofuels 

Indirect land use change (iLUC) 

Indirect land use change is land conversion caused by the displacement of agricultural production. It occurs, for example, when land used for growing a certain food crop or for animal grazing is used for biofuel production, causing cropland expansion elsewhere to grow that food crop or to graze those animals. 

Biofuels 

Third-generation biofuel 

Third-generation biofuels typically refer to algae fuel. Algae are feedstocks from aquatic cultivation for production of triglycerides (from algal oil) to produce biodiesel. The processing technology is basically the same as for biodiesel from second-generation feedstocks. Other third-generation biofuels include alcohols like bio-propanol or biobutanol, which due to lack of production experience are not usually considered to be relevant as fuels on the market before 2050.

See also: biofuels

Biofuels 

Decoupling 

Decoupling is when resource use or some environmental pressure either grows at a slower rate than the economic activity that is causing it (relative decoupling) or declines while the economic activity continues to grow (absolute decoupling). This indicates the ideal goal of resource efficiency, through the notion of decoupling – that economic output and human well-being will increase at the same time as rates of resource use and environmental degradation slow down and eventually decline to levels compatible with planetary boundaries (thereby enabling resource use and the delivery of ecosystem goods and services to be sustained for future generations). 

Decoupling 

Double decoupling 

Double decoupling is when economic development is decoupled from resource use and resource use is decoupled from the generation of environmental impacts.

See also: decoupling 

Decoupling 

Absolute decoupling 

Absolute decoupling is a shorthand description of a situation in which resource productivity grows faster than economic activity (GDP) and thus resource use is absolutely declining.

See also:  decoupling, relative decoupling and double decoupling 

Decoupling 

Relative decoupling

In relative decoupling the growth rate of the environmentally relevant parameter (e.g. resources used or environmental impact) is lower than the growth rate of the relevant economic indicator (for example GDP).

See also:  decoupling

Decoupling 

Impact decoupling

Impact decoupling refers to the delinking of economic output and/or resource use from negative environmental impacts.  

See also: decoupling, impacts 

Decoupling 

Impacts 

The term impact is used by the Resource Panel to refer to negative environmental impacts. These are the unwanted side-effects of economic activities and can take the form of a loss of nature or biodiversity, as well as diminished human health, welfare or well-being. Impacts can be intentional  (e.g. land conversion impacts habitat change and biodiversity) or unintentional (e.g. humans may inadvertently alter environmental conditions such as the acidity of soils, the nutrient content of surface water, the radiation balance of the atmosphere, and the concentrations of trace materials in food chains). Impacts occur across all stage of the life cycle, from extraction (i.e. groundwater pollution) to disposal (i.e. emissions). ―Impacts‖ in an LCA-context correspond to ―pressures‖ in the DPSIR framework.

See also: pressures 

Env Impacts 

Pressure 

The Resource Panel uses the term pressure to describe environmental pressures. These are pressures evoked by human activities (commonly tied to the extraction and transformation of materials and energy) that are changing the state of the environment and leading to negative environmental impacts. Priority environmental pressures identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are habitat change, pollution with nitrogen and phosphorus, overexploitation of biotic resources such as fisheries and forests, climate change, and invasive species. 

Env Impacts 

DPSIR (Drivers-pressures-state-impacts-response) framework

The DPSIR framework aims to provide a step-wise description of the causal chain linking economic activity (the drivers), the pressures (such as emissions of pollutants), changes in the state of the environment (including land cover change) and impacts (diminished human health and others). This then leads to a societal response aimed at adapting those driving forces to reduce impacts. It must not be understood as a reactive governance approach that waits for irreversible changes to the environment before responding, but rather an approach that supports preventative action and can be used as an analytical tool for linking human-nature systems in future modelling to help steer a transition. 

Env Impacts 

Input-output (I-O) method 

Input-output tables describe the interdependence of all production and consumption activities in an economy. In an input-output model, the economy is represented by industry sectors (including resource extraction, processing, manufacturing and service sectors) and final demand categories (including households, government,, investment, export, and stock changes). Integrating information on emissions and resource use caused by sectors and final demand allows ―environmentally extended IO tables (eeIOT)‖ to be provided; these can be used to calculate environmental pressures induced by production sectors or final demand categories in a way a similar to value-added or labour (UNEP 2010b). 

Env Impacts 

Life-Cycle Impact Assessment 

Life-cycle impact assessment is defined as the ―phase of Life-Cycle Assessment aimed at understanding and evaluating the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts of a product system‖ -ISO 14044 (2006).

Env Impacts 

Production-based perspective

The production-based perspective allocates the use of natural resources or the impacts related to natural resource extraction and processing to the location where they physically occur (Wood et al., 2018).

Env Impacts 

Safe operating practices 

Safe operating practices target the sustainability of production on a certain unit of land. As regards agriculture, sustainable practices maintain soil quality and land conditions while sustaining or increasing biomass production. 

General

Sustainable supply 

Sustainable supply refers to the amount of resources that can be extracted and used for production and consumption before the threshold of a safe operating space is surpassed. At a global scale, (sustainable) levels of production equal (sustainable) levels of consumption. At a local scale, sustainable supply is aimed at by safe operating practises.

See also:  sustainable levels 

General

Safe operating space

Safe operating space is a concept developed by Rockström et al. (2009) that reflects a corridor for human development where the risks of irreversible and significant damage to global life-sustaining systems seem tolerably low. 

General

Sustainable consumption and production

At the Oslo Symposium in 1994, the Norwegian Ministry of Environment defined sustainable consumption and production as: the use of services and related products that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product (so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations). Ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns has become an explicit goal of the SDGs (Goal number 12), with the specific target of achieving sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources by 2030. The concept thus combines with economic and environmental processes to support the design of policy instruments and tools in a way that minimizes problem shifting and achieves multiple objectives — such as SDGs simultaneously.

General

Sustainable levels (of resource consumption) 

Sustainable levels refer to the amount of resources that can be consumed before the threshold of a safe operating space is surpassed. Sustainable levels of consumption require (a) globally acceptable resource extraction and (b) fair distribution. While sustainable levels typically refer to the consumption side of the picture, sustainable supply refers to the production side.

See also: sustainable consumption and production (SCP) 

General

Critical metal 

A critical metal is a metal of high economic importance that faces supply risks (i.e. geographical and/or geopolitical constraints) and for which there is no actual or commercially viable substitute. It is a relative concept, and the list of critical metals will vary depending upon the needs of industry, especially those of emerging technologies. 

Metals

Materials 

Materials are substances or compounds. They are used as inputs to production or manufacturing because of their properties. A material can be defined at different stages of its life cycle: unprocessed (or raw) materials, intermediate materials and finished materials. For example, iron ore is mined and processed into crude iron, which in turn is refined and processed into steel. Each of these can be called materials. Steel is then used as an input in many other industries to make finished products (UNEP 2010b).

Metals

Metals 

Metals are elements (or mixtures of elements) characterized by specific properties, i.e. conductivity of electricity. Major engineering metals include e.g. aluminium, copper, iron, lead, steel and zinc. Precious metals include gold, palladium, platinum, rhodium and silver while specialty metals include antimony, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, magnesium, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, tin, titanium, and tungsten. Because metals are elements they are not degradable and cannot be depleted in an absolute sense: once in the environment they do not disappear, but some, like heavy metals, may accumulate in soils, sediments, and organisms with impacts on human and ecosystem health.

See also: critical metals

Metals

Secondary material 

A secondary material has already been used and recycled (= recycled material). It refers to the amount of the outflow which can be recovered to be re-used or refined to re-enter the production stream. One aim of dematerialization is to increase the amount of secondary materials used in production and consumption to create a more circular economy. 

Metals

Stocks 

A stock is the quantity (e.g. mass) of a chosen material that exists within a given system boundary at a specific time. In terms of measurement units, stock is a level variable (i.e. it is measured in kg) as opposed to material flows (which are rate variables).

See also:  anthropogenic stocks, hibernating stocks, in-use stocks, material stocks

Metals

Water efficiency 

Water efficiency is described by the ratio of useful water outputs to inputs of a given system or activity. It implies using less water to achieve more goods and services and entails finding ways to maximize the value of water use and allocation decisions within and between uses and sectors (Global Water Partnership 2006).

See also:  efficiency

Water 

Water footprint 

The water footprint is an indicator mapping the impact of human consumption on global fresh water resources (Hoekstra 2003). The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used (directly and indirectly) to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. Water use is measured in water volume consumed (evaporated) and/or polluted per unit of time. 

Water 

Water harvesting 

Rainwater harvesting refers to the collection of rain that otherwise would become run-off. Various sorts of rainwater harvesting techniques exist to provide drinking water, water for livestock or water for irrigating crops or gardens (FAO 2011). 

Water 

Water productivity 

Water productivity measures how a system converts water into goods and services. It refers to the ratio of net benefits derived from e.g. crop, forestry, fishery, livestock and industrial systems to the amount of water used in the production process (product units/m3). Generally, increased productivity of water means increasing the volume of benefit, i.e. output, service or satisfaction from a unit of water used. When water productivity is measured in monetary output instead of physical output, we speak about ‗economic water productivity‘. See also:  productivity 

Water 

Water recycling

Water recycling is the re-use of water from one economic activity for the same or another activity after significant treatment. It requires the treatment and disinfection of municipal wastewater to provide a water supply suitable for non-potable reuse, i.e. for non-drinking purposes such as landscape irrigation, toilet flushing, ornamental fountains, industrial cooling, creating ponds, and dust control at irrigation sites. 

Water 

Industrial symbiosis

A local collaboration between private and/or public enterprises to buy and sell their residual products for mutual economic benefit, thereby reducing environmental impact.

Cities

Metabolism

The flow of resources through a particular system, including where they originate, how they are processed and where they go after use (i.e. into waste systems or into re-use systems).

Cities

Metabolic configuration

The actual specific flow of resources through an existing urban system that a particular set of infrastructures makes possible within a given spatial formation and in accordance with allocative logics set by the prevailing mode of governance.

Cities

Sociotechnical systems

This refers to urban infrastructures and tends to be used when emphasis is being placed on more than just the technologies, i.e. infrastructures in the sense of a combination of technologies, processes, market structures, regulatory regimes and governance arrangements.

Cities

Well-grounded cities

An approach that focuses on the real foundational economy—an economy that relates to the livelihoods of the majority of citizens and what is required to improve their well-being and overall productivity. This includes all aspects of social policy (housing, welfare, education and health) as well as public open space, mobility, food and safety. The overall aim is to reduce inequalities by maximizing benefits for all rather than focusing on elite property development investments.

Cities

Brownfield exploration

In mineral exploitation, “brownfield exploration” designates exploration in areas near already known mineral deposits and/or exploration for lateral/ in-depth extensions of known deposits.

Minerals

Extractivism

Activities that remove large quantities of natural resources that are not processed in the countries where they are extracted (or where they are processed only to a limited degree), especially for export. The extractivist mode of accumulation refers to the exploitation of raw materials needed primarily to fuel the development and growth of industrialized and emerging nations. It typically generates few benefits for the countries where extraction takes place, due to the resulting limited demand for domestic labour, goods and services; lack of value addition and linkages to the rest of the economy; depletion of finite resources; environmental destruction; and incentives for ‘rentseeking’ behaviour that undermine effective and democratic governance.

Minerals

Ore processing (equivalent to “ore beneficiation” or “ore dressing” frequently found in the literature)

Especially for the production of metals, ore processing tends to be a specific combination of biological and/or chemical and/or physical processes needed to separate the economically valuable ore minerals from the other, valueless minerals present in the ore. This separation results in the production of a concentrate of economic minerals and ore-processing waste that will have to be disposed in the form of tailings (in specifically engineered reservoirs called tailing ponds). In the case of construction materials, such as sand and gravel, processing is frequently limited to some crushing, sorting and washing operations.

Minerals

Resource nationalism

Resource nationalism can take multiple forms. Resource nationalism can be defined as anticompetitive behavior by individual nations, designed to restrict the international supply of a natural resource, for instance to maximize the value-added generated on their territories. It can also be politically driven to exert control over the supply chains depending on specific minerals and metals through financial control of key producing countries, generally in order to develop a competitive advantage or geopolitical leverage. Resource nationalism is frequently expressed by tariff and non-tariff barriers restricting the free trade of minerals or metals. Resource nationalism is likely to have a greater effect on global terms of trade when a natural resource is only produced in a few countries. In these markets, countries can affect global prices for raw materials and have the most to gain from resource nationalism. In these cases, there is potential for the main producers (companies or countries) to act together to manipulate global prices.

Minerals

Sovereign wealth fund

Resource revenue that is sequestered in a special fund by mineral-rich countries. These special purpose financial vehicles aim to help ensure proper management of resource revenues. SWFs can have a number of components that may include: a stabilization fund, which captures in excess a pre-determined commodity price (used to project flows for budget purposes) and releases these funds to support the budget when the price falls below the predetermined price; a development fund that captures a portion of the resources flows and puts them in a fund to focus on long-term projects such as infrastructure; and a heritage fund, which captures the resources and saves them for future generations. These funds are long- term investments to be drawn by future generations.

Minerals

Abandoned land 

Abandoned land is land that was once cultivated, but is no longer used for agriculture. It may comprise degraded land with low productivity or land with high productivity. Set-aside land does not belong to this category.  

See also: degraded land, ‘marginal’ land 

Land restoration

Abiotic resources 

Abiotic resources are non-living resources that cannot regenerate by themselves. They include fossil fuels, metals and minerals. Therefore, they are often called non-renewable resources (UNEP 2010b). 

Land restoration

Acidification (soil)

Acidification of soils refers to the reduction of soil pH. It can occur naturally and soils have different levels of susceptibility, but it is also exacerbated as a result of continual removal of crops (which remove alkalinity from the soil in order to compensate carbon dioxide assimilation). Farmers control acidification by application of lime or other alkaline minerals.

Land restoration

Restoration and rehabilitation of land degradation

1. Avoid: Land degradation can be avoided by addressing drivers of degradation and through proactive measures to prevent adverse change in land quality of non-degradable land and confer resilience, via appropriate regulation, planning and management practices.

2. Reduce: Land degradation can be reduced or mitigated on agricultural forest land through application of sustainable management practices (sustainable land management, sustainable forest management).

3. Reverse: Where feasible, some (but rarely all) of the productive potential and ecological services of degraded land can be restored or rehabilitated through actively assisting the recovery of the ecosystem functions.

Land restoration

Strategies for ensuring that land restoration

The four strategies are: (1) complete holistic and systematic analyses to identify potential synergies and tradeoffs, (2) apply a landscape approach to planning and implementation – especially for landscapes with variable and potential, (3) develop targeted solutions, and (4) invest in areas where persistence is likely.

Land restoration

Food system

A state or condition when all people, at all times, have physical, economic and social access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life CFS (2009).

Food systems

Environmentally sustainable food systems

An environmentally-sustainable food system is a food system in which the environmental bases to deliver food security for future generations is not compromised. A sustainable and efficient use of natural resources for, as well as a limited environmental impacts of, food system activities are key components of an environmentally-sustainable food system.

Food systems

Environmental impacts

Environmental impacts (of food systems) refer to impacts of food system activities on the environment. Main environmental impacts are a result of direct human interventions, such as deforestation, as well as in the form of emissions (e.g. of nutrients, greenhouse gases and pesticides).

Food systems

Food security

A state or condition when all people, at all times, have physical, economic and social access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life CFS (2009).

Food systems

Nutrition security

A state or condition when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to food, which is safe and consumed in sufficient quantity and quality to meet their dietary needs and food preferences, and is supported by an environment of adequate sanitation, health services and care, allowing for a healthy and active life (Horton and Lo, 2013).

Food systems

Enhanced end-of-life recovery and recycling of materials

This increases the amount or quality of secondary materials available, which can reduce the amount of primary materials used to produce the same or another product. More of the materials in homes and cars can be recycled but it may require more dismantling/deconstruction to avoid contamination of the different material flows.

Climate change

Fabrication yield improvements

Reducing material scrap used in the fabrication and manufacturing process can decrease the demand for material input. For example, reduction of trimmings or amount of machining needed in car manufacturing.

Climate change

Material substitution

Replacing cement and steel with wood in buildings and steel with aluminum in cars can reduce life cycle emissions. The mechanisms of emission reductions vary. While wooden structures require less carbon in the construction and even store carbon, aluminum in cars causes an increase in material-related emissions but reduces operational energy use, resulting in a reduction of life cycle emissions.

Climate change

More intensive use

It implies that less product is required to provide the same service. In the case of vehicles, ride sharing (car-pooling) and car sharing imply that fewer vehicles are used more intensively to provide transport services to a given population. For buildings, both higher utilization rates, e.g., through peer-to-peer lodging, smaller, more efficiently designed residential units, and increased household size/cohabitation can achieve a reduction of building space required.

Climate change

Production lifetime extension

Through better design, increasing repair, and enhancing secondary markets. For example, the lifetime of buildings can be enhanced through flexible design which makes it easier to modify interior walls, thus accommodating changing use patterns.

Climate change

Recovery, remanufacturing, and reuse of components

Replacing production of spare parts or even primary products. For example, I-beams of buildings can be reused.

Climate change

Using less material by design

Designing lighter and smaller products that deliver the same service, reduces the amount of materials incorporated in the product and often the energy required to operate the product as well.

Climate change

Global land use accounting (GLUA) 

Global land use accounting is a method to account for the global land use of agricultural land (GLUA) or forestry (GLUF) needed to supply domestic consumption of agricultural or forestry products (respectively). It follows the principles of economy-wide material flow analysis, meaning it is calculated using land equivalents for domestic production plus imports minus exports of all agricultural or forestry goods. Land quantities are expressed in per capita terms to enable a cross-country comparison.

Material flow analysis

Material Efficiency

Means using less materials to provide the same level of well-being. It is measured by the amount of service obtained per unit of material use. Materials include biomass, cement, fossil fuels, metals, non-metallic minerals, plastics, wood, among others.

Material flow analysis

Material Footprint of Consumption

Reports the amounts of materials that are required for final demand (consumption and capital investment) in a country or region. This indicator is a good proxy for the material standard of living.

Material flow analysis

Raw Material Consumption

Measure of the raw material requirement of final demand of a country related to the conceptual language of material flow accounting.

Material flow analysis

Sustainable materials management (SMM)

An approach to serving human needs by using/reusing resources most productively and sustainably throughout their life cycles, generally minimizing the amount of materials involved and all the associated impacts (US EPA, 2015).

Material flow analysis

The 3R concept (reduce, reuse, recycle)

Encompasses similar strategies included in the concepts described above. While originating in waste management policy, the “Rs” affect and are affected by what happens at the production and use stages of the life cycle of products.

Material flow analysis

Use of materials or Society’s metabolism

Is interpreted as an environmental pressure. The larger the material use the bigger the pressure. Material use is also closely related to other pressure indicators including waste flows, energy use and carbon emissions, land use and water use.

Material flow analysis