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Along with the growing population scale and improving diet structure, a great challenge has been faced to reconcile food supply, resource use and environmental impact in contemporary agriculture. This paper presents an in-depth exergy analysis of Chinese agriculture covering cropping, forest, stockbreeding and fishery over the period of 2001–2015. The resource, environmental and economic performance of the agricultural system are illustrated by accounting all the major exergetic fluxes, which include free nature resources input, purchased economic investments, waste emissions or virtual environmental inputs, and harvested yields of agricultural products. Chinese agriculture has experienced accelerating transition from a self-supporting mode to a modern energy-intensive pattern, which is characterized by lower renewability index, higher non-renewable resource consumption and economic investment ratio, and larger waste emissions and environmental resource input. The improvements of resource use efficiency and total agricultural productivity are also identified as indicated by the evolution of resource yield ratio and system transformity. In 2015, as to 100 units of agricultural yield, there were about 109 units of purchased resource input including 18 units purchased nonrenewable resources, 748 units of free natural resource input and 21 units of environmental impact. Exergy analyses capture the resource and environmental performance of agricultural ecological economic system by pinpointing the real exergy dissipation and cost processes, which could help policy makers to couple biophysical concepts more robustly for improving resource use efficiency and achieving sustainable development of Chinese agriculture in the 21 st century.

Carrying capacity is a fundamental concept in rangeland science and management; however, it is difficult to define, not least because it can be viewed from varied perspectives. With a view to facilitating debate, six perspectives (or definitions) of carrying capacity were formulated, representing: resource productivity; animal production; the system; animal welfare; the environment; and profit. To explore their implications semiquantitatively, Noy-Meir's simple, two-function model of a grazing system was used to simulate the annual herbage production cycle, during which a specified animal population density would be present year-round, except during an early-season grazing deferment of specified duration. The model was extended to calculate a metric for each definition of carrying capacity and then implemented for various combinations of the two key grazing-management-determined parameters: animal density and deferment duration. The metrics were mapped as a series of response surfaces. In general, grazing deferment at the start of the growth season can compensate for an increase in animal density. In other words, carrying capacity is, for most definitions, a contour line on a response surface; it divides the total space into “acceptable” and “unacceptable” regions of grazing-management practice. The contour lines that characterize the various carrying-capacity definitions can then be superimposed to examine the degree of overlap between “acceptable” regions. Two common rules-of-thumb for determining carrying capacity are examined by using this approach. The term “carrying capacity” is vague because it can address various concerns, but some of the most important concerns can be defined in reasonably precise terms and translated into quantitative metrics, based on the fundamental states and rates of a grazing system. Such an approach could facilitate dialogue among those concerned with the continuous refinement of carrying-capacity recommendations.

This article presents the first broad estimate of mineral use and efficiency taking into account two unique sets of mineral material groups (critical and precious) mostly used in the 21st century. It is therefore distinct from the previous studies which were focused on biomass and construction minerals. Standardized methodology for material flow accounting was applied based on long time series data from 1955 to 2015. Mineral flows, resource productivity, resource intensity, resource extraction, consumption and trade patterns were presented and compared, with differences and similarities verified. Our results showed that mineral use increased from 3 gigatons to 40 gigatons for metallic minerals, 3 gigatons to about 10 gigatons for fuel minerals, 20 million tons to about 100 million tons for critical minerals, and 200 tons to about 11,000 tons for precious minerals from 1955 to 2015. Regional metabolic rates ranged from 0.45 t/cap/a in Africa to 7 t/cap/a in Asia. Meanwhile, Europe and Western Offshoots presented decreasing trends, Asia highlighted surging mineral consumption while LACA presented increasing mineral domestic extraction. Western Offshoots, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa were net exporters of metallic minerals while Asia emerged as a net importer in the last three decades. Different regions demonstrated different trends in material intensity and resource productivity. The impact of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), on Domestic Material Consumption (DMC), for different mineral groups in the different regions was investigated and discussed. Our results furnish critical intuition to future effective and efficient global and regional resource management.

Technological change plays a critical role in economic growth. Prevailing approaches to estimation of total technological change are associated with total factor productivity (TFP) based on a Cobb-Douglas (CD) production function. To estimate resource-specific technological change, previous studies typically assume an alternative specific functional form other than a CD function such as a Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) function. In this article, we argue that under certain conditions, a resource-specific technological change can be estimated from observed resource intensity/productivity data over time, irrespective of which functional form is adopted. We also illustrate that if the estimated technological change is applied to a CD production function, the estimated resource elasticities can differ considerably from that estimated by the prevailing TFP approach. In our case of a panel data for 40 regions 1995–2009, our approach shows that a CD function is plausible across regions compared to the TFP approach.

This paper draws on material entropy and life cycle thinking to develop the Resource States framework. This framework clarifies and systematises the language around resources within the circular economy (CE) discourse, such that insights from different tools and approaches that investigate different aspects of CE can be aggregated and a more comprehensive picture of complex circular systems can be compiled. Currently, progress of the CE discourse is hampered by a lack of a clear and systematic approach to what we refer to as the particle state and the product state. That is: whether to approach resource circulation from the perspective of elements, molecules or materials; or whether to adopt the perspective of products or finished goods. As these two perspectives are often implicit in current contributions to CE, we first articulate both approaches, before assessing their respective contributions and limitations. Next, we draw on material entropy and life cycle thinking to integrate both perspectives and develop a more comprehensive way of conceptualising resource states, in the form of the Resource States framework. We furthermore present how this framework can be used A) to clearly distinguish between circular strategies, as well as between different implementation scenarios of the same circular strategy; B) to systematically explore and map synergies and trade-offs between combinations of circular strategies; and C) to link circular strategies with structural waste present in a given context. Lastly, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the framework and reflect on how it advances the CE field.

Domestic material consumption (DMC) remains a significant source of climate change as identified within the sustainable development goal twelve (SDG12) by the United Nations. This makes the need to further explore the DMC growth nexus more pertinent. Using key material indicators and macroeconomic variables from the European Union (EU-28), this study explored the dynamics of the relationship between material consumption and economic growth, using the Granger-type autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) panel estimation technique and a data period from 2007-2017. This enabled a comparison of performance between low resource efficiency economy against top performers, in reference to SDG12 and resource productivity performance in the EU-28 member states. Findings show that countries with high levels of domestic material consumption, as proxied by the resource productivity index, tend to have a relatively lower impact of material use on economic performance, which can lead to a dangerous cycle of inefficiency.

The transport sector is supported by the continuous provision of energy and material flows and material stocks. However, most resource accounting methods do not assess the role of material accumulation in the delivery of mobility, as a service. Using a UK-based case study, we evaluate the service contribution of both resource stocks and flows in the provision of the passenger-kilometres (pkm) travelled nationally by UK-registered cars between 1960 and 2015. For flows we considered diesel and petrol. For stocks we considered steel, aluminium, and plastics, among others. We used six indicators to analyse the interactions between stocks, flows and service. Our results show that the fuel efficiency of cars increased from 0.46 to 0.69 pkm/MJ over the period. However, there was a decrease in stock efficiency from 24.9 to 17.1 pkm/kg-year. Resource productivity increased from 0.42 to 0.61 pkm/MJ. Stock expansion rate decreased from 0.16 to 0.03 year−1 while the specific CO2 embodied impact reduced from 2.4 to 2.0 tCO2/tonne of resource flow. Consumer preferences for heavier larger vehicles and sociodemographic changes linked to workplace expectations, commuting and urbanisation patterns are key factors influencing UK car stock efficiency. While fuel efficiency has improved and will continue to do so via the mass adoption of electric vehicles, due to policy and legislative developments, there are still sustainability concerns linked to their heavier weight and the environmental impact of their increased material complexity.

Food sustainability transitions refer to transformation processes necessary to move towards sustainable food systems. Digitization is one of the most important ongoing transformation processes in global agriculture and food chains. The review paper explores the contribution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to transition towards sustainability along the food chain (production, processing, distribution, consumption). A particular attention is devoted to precision agriculture as a food production model that integrates many ICTs. ICTs can contribute to agro-food sustainability transition by increasing resource productivity, reducing inefficiencies, decreasing management costs, and improving food chain coordination. The paper also explores some drawbacks of ICTs as well as the factors limiting their uptake in agriculture. Keywords: Sustainability transitions, ICT, Agriculture digitization, Food supply chain, Food processing, Distribution, Consumption

This paper shows how to constructively engage with waste and resource management frameworks, by clarifying their role in the societal discourse on waste and resources, providing insight into their step-based structure, and how they draw on different definitions of ‘waste’ and ‘resource.’ Through use of the concepts of ‘frame,’ ‘collective action frame’ and ‘logics,’ a language and conceptual toolbox is made available that facilitates a constructive debate around such frameworks. Ten waste and resource management frameworks are included here, among which are the five frameworks that are part of the synthesis of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Circular Economy framework: Cradle-to-Cradle™ by Braungart and McDonough, the Performance Economy by Walter Stahel, the Blue Economy by Gunter Pauli, Regenerative Design by John Lyle and the Industrial Symbiosis framework. A case is made for the careful consideration, creation, use and further development of such frameworks and directions are provided for the further development of the CE concept into a robust concept.

Remanufacturing and direct reuse are considered important measures for promoting the circular economy and improving resource efficiency. Automotive production is a typical resource- and energy-intensive industrial sector, and is a prime market for remanufacturing and direct reuse. Assessing the effect of remanufacturing and direct reuse on the automotive production industry from the perspective of resource efficiency will provide an important reference for improving understandings of remanufacturing and guiding relevant policies in a broader context. A literature review reveals few studies focusing on the resource efficiency of remanufacturing and direct reuse, and the relative lack of a generally accepted indicator to assess the resource efficiency of industrial processes. This paper promotes a new indicator, resource productivity of industrial process, and constructs a material flow model to calculate the resource productivity of China’s automotive industry. Results suggest that the indicator and its analytical model are effective tools to assess resource efficiency. Results also suggest that compared to a case where remanufacturing and direct reuse are not employed, adding these processes in China’s automotive supply chain would increase resource productivity of industrial process by 7.1% in a high efficiency scenario. Based on these findings, policy recommendations for applying the indicator at industry level and encouraging remanufacturing and direct reuse are provided.

Energy, water and food resource scarcity caused by rapid population growth, climate change, imbalanced ecosystems, and economic diversification, is the biggest challenge for today's world. In recent decades, the importance of the interdependent relationship between these resources has been recognized as the energy-water-food nexus. Sustainable resource consumption and the capability to ascertain true resource consumption is crucial for modern day development. As such, wide-spread adoption of the energy-water-food nexus methodology for integrated resource modeling can significantly contribute toward resource productivity and continuity. This methodology has expanded over the years, from concept development to application in multiple case studies. The methodology has also enabled the identification of synergies and trade-offs within the sub-systems that constitute the overall energy-water-food nexus system, hence providing a mechanism for optimization in resource consumption and minimization in the total environmental burden in the system under evaluation. This paper has reviewed the interlinkages inherent in the energy-water-food nexus, and the progress in developing suitable quantification methods. Although there is no standardized methodology for analysis involving the energy-water-food nexus, the life-cycle assessment methodology has been used as an enabler for the quantification of environmental burdens of systems evaluated using the ‘Nexus’ approach. As such, this paper will provide an overview of the different applications in which the life cycle assessment methodology has been applied to energy-water-food nexus analysis. The paper concludes that an integrated life cycle assessment and energy-water-food nexus methodology is necessary to determine environmental burdens for different scenarios presented within systems operating within an energy-water-food nexus environment, essentially influencing energy-water-food resource sectors.

The prospects for long-term sustainability depend on whether, and how much, we can absolutely decouple economic output from total energy and material throughput. While relative decoupling has occurred – that is, resource use has grown less quickly than the economy – absolute decoupling has not, raising the question whether it is possible. This paper proposes a novel explanation for why decoupling has not happened historically, drawing on a recent theory of cost-share induced productivity change and an extension of post-Keynesian pricing theory to natural resources. Cost-share induced productivity change and pricing behavior set up two halves of a dynamic, which we explore from a post-Keynesian perspective. In this dynamic, resource costs as a share of GDP move toward a stable level, at which the growth rate of resource productivity is typically less than the growth rate of GDP. This provides a parsimonious explanation of the prevalence of relative over absolute decoupling. The paper then presents some illustrative applications of the theory.

Resource input is the prerequisite to maintain the operation of socio-economic systems. Exergy analysis provides a wide and clear vision of the use and degradation of natural resources, with essential implications to sustainability. This paper aims to perform an exergy-based system account of the resource utilization in China, one of the most complex societies around the world. An overall systems diagram with seven independent and complimentary social departments is designed to illustrate the clear-cut processes of resource use and exergy destruction and loss. The national total input of resource exergy in 2012 reached 158.11 EJ, with the net input of 155.87 EJ. Its per capita resource consumption increased to 111.95 GJ, compared with 51.5 GJ in 2003. Industry accounted for 26.3% of the total resource exergy consumption, followed by Conversion 23.2%, Household 18.3%, Agriculture 10.2%, Tertiary 10.0%, Exaction 6.7% and Transportation 5.3%. The sectoral conversion coefficients of resource exergy were estimated as 91.92% for Extraction , 34.58% for Conversion , 29.75% for Agriculture , 32.18% for Industry , 18.46% for Transportation , 34.28% for Tertiary and only 1.28% for Household . The structure and efficiencies of resource exergy use of the Chinese society haven’t witnessed a prominent improvement in the recent decade, and its resource utilization performance was still inferior to those of some industrialized societies. Exergy-based unified accounting for a benchmark year provides solid foundation for resource policy formation and can serve as the tool for identifying resource footprint and sustainable development mode.

The Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) is a large geographical region in southeastern Australia that contains many rivers and creeks, including Australia’s three longest rivers, the Murray, the Murrumbidgee and the Darling. Understanding rainfall patterns in the MDB is very important due to the significant impact major events such as droughts and floods have on agricultural and resource productivity. We propose a model for modelling a set of monthly rainfall data obtained from stations in the MDB and for producing predictions in both the spatial and temporal dimensions. The model is a hierarchical spatio-temporal model fitted to geographical data that utilises both deterministic and data-derived components. Specifically, rainfall data at a given location are modelled as a linear combination of these deterministic and data-derived components. A key advantage of the model is that it is fitted in a step-by-step fashion, enabling appropriate empirical choices to be made at each step.

Evaluating resource and environmental efficiency is helpful to stakeholders when making iterative improvements to resource management policies, with regards to either their business activities or to societal management. Traditional evaluation models—which consider undesirable outputs in measuring environmental efficiency—are output-oriented, and so they only pursue the minimum undesirable outputs and the maximum desirable outputs, based on current inputs. The growing depletion of nonrenewable resources makes it difficult to acquire the resources essential to socioeconomic development. In such circumstances, better consideration of resource use (i.e., inputs) is required when considering both desirable and undesirable outputs. This study aims to develop an improved approach by which to evaluate resource and environmental efficiency, based on data envelopment analysis; in this approach, the evaluation of resource inputs into the objective function is introduced. On account of its improvements, the new model can measure not only resource and environmental efficiency, but also efficiencies with regards to resource inputs, undesirable outputs, and desirable outputs. The feasibility of the model is verified through its use in undertaking further empirical analyses of data from mainland China’s 31 provinces. The results of that analysis show the average resource and environmental efficiency value of China’s inefficient provinces to be only 0.65—a value that suggests that mainland China’s resource and environmental efficiency needs to be further improved.

To be successfully implemented, circular economy requires the design of innovative business models that can enable multiple value creation mechanisms. One way to achieve this is by means of product/service-systems. Nevertheless, there is still limited consideration in the literature regarding the effect of applying different circular strategies – or resource productivity or resource efficiency strategies - in the development of alternative business models for different product/service-system types. By means of retrospective case studies, this article discusses how different types of product/service-systems and their business models are related to or enable different circular strategies. Insights and future research opportunities are outlined.

The paper discusses the existence of a linear manifold in a vicinity of a steady state for stabilization of the Hamiltonian systems arising in optimal control problems for economic growth models. It is shown that such stable manifold exists for almost all possible values of model parameters guaranteeing the existence of a steady state. Research is based on the qualitative analysis of the Hamiltonian dynamics, which plays a key role for investigating the asymptotic behavior of optimal trajectories. A procedure is proposed for stabilization of the Hamiltonian system, whose trajectories converge to equilibrium and approximate the optimal solution with the quadratic accuracy at a vicinity of the steady state. Basing on properties of the Hamiltonian matrices, the classification of steady states is provided and the sensitivity analysis for identification of their character is implemented with respect to model parameters. The proposed approach is applied to the model dealing with dynamic optimization of the resource productivity. © 2018 18–01–00221a The paper is supported by Russin Foundation for Basic Research (Project No. 18–01–00221a).

The explosive growth of the phosphorus resources industry in China has led to a series of problems (e.g., resource depletion, market supply and demand imbalances and environmental pollution). It is necessary to analyze the bottleneck in the development of the phosphorus resources industry under traditional modes and to suggest new directions for development. Therefore, this paper presents a system dynamics model based on the state of the regional phosphorus resources industry that focuses on resource, industrial, economic, environmental and social subsystems. Furthermore, by focusing on and quantitatively expressing the tailings recovery and resource reuse module, market regulation and elimination mechanism structures, governmental support and environmental constraints of game structures, and feedback structures between social innovation and industrial production, we construct a transformation mode as a development strategy for the phosphorus resources industry. The results demonstrate that the service life of phosphate rock under the transformation mode can be extended by 31 years. Compared to the 2014 levels, the resource productivity and ecological efficiency levels achieved can be increased by 2-fold and 2.5-fold in 2025, respectively. In addition, the social satisfaction levels can rise by roughly 50% under the transformation mode. Thus, the model can be used to assess the effects of various policies and to support decision making on development and environmental protection strategies.

Ethiopia has recently committed to economic transformation and industrialisation through a low-carbon development trajectory. Existing literature highlights innovation as a critical driver of industrialisation, and the need for ‘green’ innovations to improve resource productivity and reduce pollution. However, empirical studies investigating the nexus between green innovation systems and industrialisation in developing countries are limited. Based on nine semi-structured interviews and a survey of 117 firms, this article assesses sectoral systems of innovation in Ethiopia's cement, leather and textile sectors, with a view to understanding their functioning toward supporting green industrialisation. Results revealed low rates of product and process innovations among firms in Ethiopia. The main inhibitors of innovation are high costs of technology, inadequate finance and limited information. Improving competitiveness is the main driver of firms' innovation, while reducing environmental impacts and meeting environmental regulations were among the least important motivators. Moreover, interactions among firms, government and other actors encourage innovation. The study therefore suggests enhancing coordination among key actors, providing financial incentives for firms, and enforcing environmental regulations.

Conventional resource productivity (RP) evaluation methods for industrial parks (IPs) are usually limited in scope, as they do not differentiate between the different types of resources. The real resource consumption and environmental impact were usually hidden. In response to this limitation, the Adjusted Raw Material Consumption (ARMC) method was introduced. The method took upstream production efficiency and resource grades into consideration. In this way, equivalent primary resource consumption (EPRC) was applied. In this paper, a set of equivalent coefficients estimation methods was established. Tianjin Economic-Technological and Development Area (TEDA) were chosen as a case study to demonstrate the application of ARMC method. By comparison with conventional methods, the ARMC method broadens the scope for calculating resource consumption by including upstream mining and refining of primary resources. It reveals the real resource consumption structure and determines key resource for holistic improvements to RP. Analysis on TEDA shows it has not yet fully achieved full decoupling between resource consumption and economic growth. Several industrial symbiosis activities have already been implemented to reduce aluminum and lead consumptions in TEDA. To more quickly achieve a greater increase in RP, and thus decoupling, efforts to reduce iron and copper consumptions should be made simultaneously. This evaluation is particularly beneficial for IPs, and for the government to promote more targeted measures to improve resource efficiency. This study was first attempt to assess resource consumption structure in IPs using ARMC method. Based on the results, a management procedure for IPs to improve RP value was developed.

Service is most often measured with a flow and monetary perspective using indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP) or the value added or income of a particular economic sector. However, infrastructures and therefore the associated material stocks also participate to the service delivery. Our study contributes to this emerging research field through a novel method of measuring stocked material use efficiency (SMUE) of sewerage pipelines in Japan, beyond monetary measures. We estimated the Japanese national and prefectural material stocks (MS) using statistical data and used direct service indicators such as the population with access to sewerage treatment services and the amount of treated wastewater to find the SMUE. Later, decomposition analysis was used to ascertain the main factors influencing SMUE. Results show an MS increase for all prefectures and a doubling of the national MS from 207 million tonnes (Mt) 520 Mt between 1984 and 2012. Material stocks are found mainly associated with population size, the highest populated prefectures Tokyo and Osaka also accounting for the highest material stocks. Concerning SMUE ranging from 4 to 48 m3/ton for a national average of 27 m3/ton, its main determinants are population density and pipeline size. This research promotes greater understanding of our stock use condition and thereby facilitates appropriate stock management.

This paper proposes a new value-based indicator to assess the performance of actors in the supply chain in terms of resource efficiency and circular economy. Most of the methodologies developed so far measure resource efficiency on the basis of the environmental burden of the resource relative to the value of output. However, the key point of circular economy is keeping resources within the economy when products no longer serve their functions so that materials can be used again and therefore generate more value. The unit in which resource efficiency and circular economy are measured greatly affects both the ease of acceptance by policymakers and the direction in which green policy will change our society. Whereas the most common approaches to assessing resource efficiency and circular economy use mass, in this paper we advocate measuring both resource efficiency and circular economy in terms of the market value of ‘stressed’ resources, since this value incorporates the elements of scarcity versus competition as well as taxes representing urgent social and environmental externalities. The market value of resources is well-documented and responds automatically to the locality and time at which resources are used. Applying this unit, circularity is defined as the percentage of the value of stressed resources incorporated in a service or product that is returned after its end-of-life. Resource efficiency is the ratio of added product value divided by the value of stressed resources used in production or a process thereof. It is argued that precisely the concept of a free market, in which materials, parts and components are exchanged purely on the basis of their functionality and cost, allows the resource efficiency of a process (KPI for industry and governance) to be distinguished from the resource efficiency of a product (KPI for consumers and governance). Using standard industry data from Statistics Netherlands, the resource efficiency of several Dutch industries were evaluated using the new methodology and compared with a traditional mass-based approach.

Resource efficiency and sustainable resource management is critical to transitional economies to forward their pathway to sustainable development. To date, material flows analysis (MFA) and its database has become mature tools to diagnose the national resource utilization and efficiency, but still, few attentions and systematical analysis have been done for developing countries. With this circumstance, this paper conducted an innovative try on the in-depth MFA research on Philippines and its comparison in the Asian context, as an added value to current global MFA studies. Firstly, Philippine material flows from 1980 to 2008 and designed indicators reflecting resource utilization intensity and efficiency were analyzed and compared with other typical Asian economies. Dematerialization analysis based on modified Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) was further applied, so as to investigate the coupling statements and trends of resource consumption and economic growth in Philippines and compared with other Asian countries. Finally, driving forces for the changes of material flows were investigated with decomposition approach based on IPAT (Impacts = Population × Amenity × Technology) in periods divided according to key domestic development stages. Results highlighted a fluctuation of material flows, which in line with the unstable development (1980s to early 2000s) periods in Philippines. While in its stable development (after early 2000s), the EKC-like curve was revealed, indicating increasing resource consumption stage and requirement on strengthening resource efficiency countermeasures. IPAT analysis highlighted the critical role of economic instability on the fluctuation of DMC in the periods of 1980–1986, 1986–1996 and 1996–2002. While in the period of 2002–2008, with economy recovery and stable development, DMC increased and significantly offset by resource efficiency enhancement (DMC/GDP). In Asian context, compared with mature developed countries like Japan, Philippines didn’t reach the real dematerialization stage yet. While with comparison to fast developing countries like China and Malaysia, Philippines was by far achieving the material prosperity together with economic prosperity. Therefore, with setting stable economic as priority, to enhance resource efficiency measures like cleaner production and regional eco-industrial development, market measures on resource price and tax, as well as decision support tool development are critical to Philippines’ future sustainable resource management. With above highlights, this paper expects to provide critical insights to the ever-improvement of Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries’ resource efficiency and resource management.

Resource efficiency is both, a scientific concept in sustainability assessment and a policy concept that aims to achieve maximum extraction of resource materials from a mineral deposit at minimum waste production. Presently, established proxies for resource efficiency use weight-based measures of a system’s materials consumption However, such proxies are not directly applicable to mining operations. This study introduces a new method and associated techniques for the evaluation and quantification of resource efficiency in mining operations. This approach considers intensities in land, water, energy and mineral deposit consumption (i.e. specific resource consumption to produce one unit of output). Applying this new methodology, resource intensities have been assessed and quantified for 22 major copper mines. Results have allowed relative ranking of these mines in terms of resource efficiency. This work also demonstrates that deposit properties and its geographic location impact on resource efficiency. Consequently, political measures, needed to promote resource efficiency in mining, should focus on region-specific aspects and the properties of the mined ore deposit.

Achieving sustainable development requires the decoupling of natural resource use and environmental pressures from economic growth and improvements in living standards. G7 leaders and others have called for improved resource efficiency, along with inclusive economic growth and deep cuts in global greenhouse emissions. However, the outlooks for and interactions between global natural resource use, resource efficiency, economic growth and greenhouse emissions are not well understood. We use a novel multi-regional modeling framework to develop projections to 2050 under existing trends and three policy scenarios. We find that resource efficiency could provide pro-growth pro-environment policies with global benefits of USD $2.4 trillion in 2050, and ease the politics of shifting towards sustainability. Under existing trends, resource extraction is projected to increase 119% from 2015 to 2050, from 84 to 184 billion tonnes per annum, while greenhouse gas emissions increase 41%, both driven by the value of global economic activity more than doubling. Resource efficiency and greenhouse abatement slow the growth of global resource extraction, so that in 2050 it is up to 28% lower than in existing trends. Resource efficiency reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 15–20% in 2050, with global emissions falling to 63% below 2015 levels when combined with a 2 °C emissions pathway. In contrast to greenhouse abatement, resource efficiency boosts near-term economic growth. These economic gains more than offset the near-term costs of shifting to a 2 °C emissions pathway, resulting in emissions in 2050 well below current levels, slower growth in resource extractions, and faster economic growth.

This work proposes a lifetime design strategy for binary geothermal plants which takes into account heat resource degradation. A model of the resource temperature and mass flow rate decline over a 30 year plant life is developed from a survey of data. The standard approach to optimise a basic subcritical cycle of n-pentane working fluid and select component sizes is used for the resource characteristics in years 1, 7, 15 and 30. The performances of the four plants designed for the different resource conditions are then simulated over the plant life to obtain the best lifetime design. The net present value and energy return on investment are selected as the measures of merit. The production history of a real geothermal well in the Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand, is used as a case study for the lifetime design strategy. The results indicate that the operational parameters (such as mass flow rate of n-pentane, inlet turbine pressure and air mass flow rate) and plant performance (net power output) decrease over the whole plant life. The best lifetime plant design was at year 7 with partly degraded conditions. This condition has the highest net present value at USD 6,894,615 and energy return on investment at 4.15. Detailed thermo-economic analysis was carried out with the aim of improving the plant performance to overcome the resource degradation in two ways: operational parameters adjustments and adaptable designs. The results shows that mass flow rates of n-pentane and air cooling should be adjusted to maintain the performance over the plant life. The plant design can also be adapted by installing a recuperator and reducing the heat transfer area of preheater and vaporizer.

Emergy analysis can facilitate unified system resources accounting. By combining emergy method with input–output modeling technology, this paper developed an eco-thermodynamic input–output model of the 2007 China economy to account for the sector-specific resource intensities. The results show that the resource intensities for Chinese industry sectors present a distribution with a certain pattern which may vary over three orders of magnitude, measured in terms of resource consumption against economic capital generation. At the scale of the entire economy, the emergy intensities for the resource extraction sectors of non-metallic minerals and metallic ores are the highest. Sectors with the smallest emergy to money ratios are service sectors which rely less on primary natural resources. The sector of coal mining is found to have the largest resource intensity of 6.19E+16 seJ/1E+4 CNY among all sectors, while the sectoral intensity of scrap and waste is only 6.44E+14 seJ/1E+4 CNY, the least one. The insight obtained by juxtaposing resource intensities as well as their structures of industry sectors is useful to identify opportunities for reducing resource intensities that could enable improvements in their ecological sustainability.

The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have experienced dramatic economic expansions during the last couple of decades. However, such a rapid development induced a large consumption of natural resources, leading to serious environmental issues. Under such a circumstance, this study calculates the resource footprints of biomass, fossil fuel, minerals and water in BRIC countries for the years of 1995 and 2008 by employing a global, multi-regional input–output model based on the World Input–Output Database (WIOD) and extended by material extraction data. Trends in BRIC's resource footprints and consumption-based resource productivity were presented and compared. The results show that about one third of global resources were extracted to satisfy the consumption of BRIC countries, of which China had the highest footprint. During 1995–2008, per capita resource footprints in BRIC countries had increased faster than the world average, especially for China. However, BRIC's overall per capita footprint was still below the world average, with India as one of the lowest in the world. Most components of resource footprints in BRIC countries were lower than their domestic resource extractions, indicating that the dramatic economic growth was mainly based on domestic resource extractions. China's overall resource footprint increased faster than its domestic extraction (DE), while Brazil's footprint growth rate can catch up with its DE. This study also reveals that Russia's resource productivity was the highest among all the BRIC countries, followed by Brazil. A large gap on resource productivity existed among the BRIC countries, especially for fossil fuels and minerals. Policy implications from this study suggest that the BRIC countries should have more rational urban plans, gradually substitute renewable energy for fossil fuels, develop circular economy and initiate various capacity building projects.

In this paper, we propose ‘material utility’ as a new concept for analyzing the influencing factors of resource productivity (RP). We demonstrate the application of this concept by empirically analyzing direct and indirect factors influencing RP. Results indicate the following: (1) RP is essentially an aggregate of the efficiency of a material's major utility for different resource categories by weight of their respective utility coefficients. (2) The direct factors influencing RP are utility coefficient (C), intensity of utility use in economic sectors (T) and economic structure (S); whereby C, T and S respectively contribute 7%, 119%, and −26% to the decline of fossil energy intensity (the inverse of RP for fossil energy) in China during the period of 1980–2010. (3) The indirect factors influencing RP are resource quality, technology and economic structure. Specifically, RP can be increased by using higher quality resources, e.g., metal ore with higher ore grade. One unit (1%) increase in research and development (R&D) expenditure intensity and percentage of tertiary industry will result in 427 US$/ton and 40 US$/ton increase in RP, respectively. This research suggests new avenues for improving the accuracy of RP as an indicator and for policy measurement for increasing RP.

The “resource curse” is a familiar and recurring theme in development economics. But does resource abundance also lead to resource inefficiency? And if so, what can contribute to better usage of a country’s resources for development? This paper examines 130 countries from 1970 to 2011, both resource-abundant and resource-scarce, and concludes that, on average, resource-abundant countries utilize resources less efficiently. Examining the institutional factors that may explain this disparity in usage, we find that several key institutions are necessary for increasing resource use efficiency, with private property showing the largest economic and statistical significance. By improving basic institutions, resource-rich countries can thus see more environmentally sustainable growth.

Resource funds have been widely defended in the theoretical literature as a solution to the resource curse. In this work, empirical analyses of a sample of 28 resource-rich countries over the period 1985–2010 do not support this argument. Rather, the results indicate that resource funds have a negative and significant effect on growth and that this finding is robust under alternative estimation techniques. Moreover, the results do not validate the hypothesis of the resource curse due to the positive effect of resource dependence on growth. Finally, the study provides evidence that the negative component of the curse is captured by the resource funds. The implications in terms of natural resources funds management are discussed.

This study focuses on the sustainability aspects of the Romanian solid waste management systems, from 2004 till 2013 and its evolution compared to the European Union context in the same period. The evaluation based on a 4 tiers classification of indicators: general socio-economic, solid waste generation, solid waste management profile and sustainability profile (self-sufficiency and carbon footprint indicators) links the demand and consumption with waste generation and treatment and finally with the resulting environmental impact. The Romanian socio-economic profile denotes a fragile economy with the resource productivity indicator being 5.72–8.61 times smaller than the annual EU averages. The municipal and industrial solid waste (MSW) generation rates in Romania are approximately 30%–40% smaller than the corresponding European averages, most of the waste coming from mining and quarrying and agricultural activities. 80% of the MSW generated is treated, by comparison to 97% in EU, while 96% of the Romanian MSW is being currently disposed in contrast with just 30% in EU. The MSW self-sufficiency indicator has doubled over the decade, but is still just 2%, while the reference value is 100%. The first calculation of Romanian MSW system carbon footprint indicates results between −1.2 to 0.3 t CO 2 e/t MSW.

China is experiencing rapid development and suffering from resource depletion and increasing environmental emissions. It is necessary to identify the key patterns of resource use in different Chinese regions so that more appropriate solutions can be raised. Under such a circumstance, the aim of this paper is to scientifically measure and evaluate the sustainability of natural resources utilization of 30 Chinese provinces for the year of 2007 by adopting a bio-perspective method-emergy analysis. After referring to the traditional emergy accounting method, several emergy-based indicators were established to evaluate resource flows, structure, efficiency and the overall sustainable level of different Chinese regions. Furthermore, by employing GIS technology, spatial distribution of natural resources was presented to illustrate emergy consumption with various regional characteristics in 30 Chinese provinces, which may help better understand regional disparities of resource utilization. The results show that regions with most emergy consumption include Shanxi (2.07E+24sej) and Shandong (2.07E+24sej), and most regions with higher resource consumption locate in east China, while less developed region Qinghai has the highest sustainability level, with ESI being 44.82. Another key finding is that renewable resources were very important to sustainability development, and a large amount of consumption on non-renewable resources led to higher environmental press on local and surrounding ecosystems. Sustainable resource use can only be achieved by reducing total resource use, encouraging technology innovation, initiating institutional reform and preparing region-specific development strategies.

The field of nutrition will face numerous challenges in coming decades; these arise from changing lifestyles and global consumption patterns accompanied by a high use of resources. Against this background, this paper presents a newly designed tool to decrease the effect on nutrition, the so-called Nutritional Footprint. The tool is based on implementing the concept of a sustainable diet in decision-making processes, and supporting a resource-light society. The concept integrates four indicators in each of the two nutrition-related fields of health and environment, and condenses them into an easily communicable result, which limits its results to one effect level. Applied to eight lunch meals, the methodology and its calculations procedures are presented in detail. The results underline the general scientific view of food products; animal-protein based meals are more relevant considering their health and environmental effects. The concept seems useful for consumers to evaluate their own choices, and companies to expand their internal data, their benchmarking processes, or their external communication performance. Methodological shortcomings and the interpretation of results are discussed, and the conclusion shows the tools' potential for shaping transition processes, and for the reduction of natural resource use by supporting food suppliers' and consumers' decisions and choice.

In line with the rising interest in harnessing natural resource revenues for economic and human development through productive government investments, this paper aims to address an important blind spot in our understanding of the “resource curse” by contributing innovative insights on how natural resource wealth impacts government priorities and expenditure practices. Using a large panel dataset of 140 countries covering the period from 1995 to 2009, we find an adverse effect of resource dependence on public education expenditures relative to GDP that is robust to controlling for a range of additional covariates. Furthermore, our findings indicate that this resource curse effect on the government prioritization of education mainly stems from point-source natural resources. These results are of particular importance for the sustainable management of natural resource wealth in developing countries, as they could achieve especially high returns by investing resource revenues in public goods such as education. While this paper underlines the importance of institutions and government accountability, our findings also raise questions on the role of the private sector as a partner in development, as the extractives industry could consider increasing funding for education through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

A capacity acquisition process is resource dependent when the existing resources impact the valuation of new resources and thereby influence the investment decision. Following a formal analysis of resource dependency, we show that uncertainty and aversion to risks are sufficient conditions for resource dependent capacity acquisition. Distinct from the technology lock-in effects of increasing returns to scale or learning, risk aversion can induce diversity. We develop a stochastic programming framework and solve the optimization problem by decomposing the problem into investment and operational horizon subproblems. Our computational results for an application to the electricity sector show, inter alia, that technology choices between low carbon and fossil fuel technologies, as well as their investment timings, are dependent upon the resource bases of the companies, with scale, debt leverage and uncertainty effects increasing resource dependency. Particularly, we show that resource dependency can significantly impact the optimal investment decisions and we argue that it should be evaluated at both company and policy levels of analysis.

The cement and cement-based materials industry is one of the key industries for China's pollution control and resource management. Based on the Material Flow Analysis (MFA) framework, the status and potential improvement level of eco-efficiency indicators for this industry were assessed by the construction of a systematic material flow model that integrated the production, usage and waste management of cement and concrete on a national level in China. This model was also developed as a tool for monitoring and predicting the resource consumption and emissions of this industry based on the framework of material flow analysis. China's cement and concrete material cycle for 2010 was constructed on a quantitative basis by using this model. The results demonstrated that in 2010, the whole industry consumed over 15 billion tons of material to produce 1.88 billion tons of cement, 3.38 billion cubic meters of mortar and 3.59 billion cubic meters of concrete. The industry released 2.5 million tons of air pollutants and 1.0 billion tons of CO2, which accounted for approximately 5% and 12.5% of China's total amounts, respectively. The eco-efficiency indicators of this industry showed bright outlook though these indicators are still at a low level now. The resource productivity was 11 USD per ton of raw material (1 USD = 6.8 RMB in 2010), and the total emission efficiency was 164 USD per ton of CO2 and air pollutants emission. The implications for further policymaking based on the assessment of this study suggested that the promotion of end-of-pipe treatment technology, more reasonable emission standards, sustainable resource management policies and government encouragement of non-resource material utilization are in urgent need for improving the eco-efficiency of this industry.

Limited access to energy resources and increasing demand for mitigation of the environmental impacts have necessitated higher production efficiencies. Therefore, the promotion of R&D activities has been one of the main parts of national energy policies. In this research work, two methods are used for assessing the effectiveness of the R&D capital on resource conservation. First, by developing the resource-included knowledge production function of the energy sector and second, through direct assessment of the functionality of resource productivity from R&D capital. Based on official data provided by national statistical centers, a comparative analysis has been conducted to examine the effectiveness of R&D in the electricity generation sectors in the United Kingdom and Germany. In these analyses, non-renewable exergy cost is used as an index of resource depletion and environmental burden. It is shown that, due to non-economic energy transition policies, the inclusion of the R&D investment does not result in statistically meaningful elasticity of production for the R&D capital. However, according to the second method, it is shown that the R&D investment in the United Kingdom has been more effective in resource conservation than in Germany. Possible reasons for such differences are discussed and recommendations for further investigations are presented.

This study, conducted as a first try, explores the resource metabolism in three main economies in South Asia (in terms of both scale and growing rate of economy) namely Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, with a standard economy-wide material flow accounting approach using the most updated data from 1978 to 2017. In detail, resource consumption patterns, resource efficiency and productivity, trade related issues, as well as macro-policies affecting regional resource utilization were analyzed in-depth. Results highlighted that, in general, rapid consumption of imported resources, especially construction minerals, fossil fuels, and industrial minerals has emerged. Domestic material consumption per capita increased by 81%, 93% and 46% during 1978–2017 in the three countries, respectively, due to the living standards enhancement, improved urban infrastructure as well as rapid industrial development. With rapidly growing resource consumption, improvements in resource productivity were still low compared with mature economies like Japan and United States. It was 410.7 USD/t for Bangladesh, followed by India (358.7 USD/t) and Pakistan (275.0 USD/t), as of 2017. One critical finding was that resource intensive production (e.g., primary materials, textile and agricultural products etc.) was driving most of the bilateral trade among the three countries, which resulted in lower overall resource productivity. The other critical insight was the future increasing pressure on regional and global resource competition, according to the revealed rising inflow of foreign resources in the studied countries. Finally, the macro-policy analysis highlighted that the impacts of environmental protection and resource efficiency policies were far from enough. And, lower per capita GDP of this region was still a significant impediment for integrated environmental and resources management. Higher focus on resource productivity, from a policy perspective, on agricultural and industrial sectors is highly recommended to forward beneficial implications for the selected countries.

Policy can influence the long-term agricultural resource productivity by stimulating/discouraging farmers to apply certain land use practices (LUP), as LUPs may affect the soil organic carbon (SOC) stock, hence influencing crop productivity. We introduce six policy strategies, each characterized by its own mix of LUPs, for the Flemish agricultural sector. Three strategies reveal the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the past, while others reflect the potential of the CAP and the application of compost. We use the life cycle impact assessment indicators ‘SOC change’ and ‘biomass productivity loss’, which account for the impact of LUPs on SOC and yield, to assess the effects on long-term productivity. To avoid burden shifting, also the resource footprint is calculated. Several farm management systems (FMS) are distinguished, each characterized by a specific combination of farm type, agricultural region, rotation system and manure type. The results highlight that policies such as the CAP significantly contribute to a better SOC stock and (to a lesser extent) productivity. Furthermore, applying extra compost seems to be promising: it can result in an increasing resource productivity and reduced resource footprint. It is important to consider the resource footprint as only for one strategy the resource consumption outweighs the benefit (i.e. reduction in N fertilizer) in the short or medium term, while also being beneficial in terms of resource productivity. As the results differ per FMS, a differentiated approach is advisable when specific LUPs are stimulated in the context of sustainable farming.

The phenomenon of regional “resource curse” appeared gradually with the rapid development of Chinese economy. China with heavy energy consumption reliance on coal tried to get balance between economic stability and regional development by resource tax reform. In our dynamic computable general equilibrium model (CGE), the paper looked into the influences on economy, resource and environment with different coal resource tax policy scenarios from a regional perspective. The stimulated results showed coal resource tax reform had a negative influence on Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, coal resource tax reform can increase regional revenues (especially in resource-rich regions) which helped to explain the exaltation of GDP in some regions, and seemed to be a highly potential way for narrowing regional economic gap. “Resource curse” regions reduction depended on resource tax rate which affected the supply and demand of elementary factors, and prevented human and capital resource crowded from the processing of the productions. And resource tax burden has alleviated as resource value subsidy for households and firms by using more alternative resources. Meanwhile, subsidy improved the quality of resource and environment. So we suggested that resource tax rate and subsidy should be taken into account in eliminating regional “resource curse” and coordinate resource and environment system within coal resource tax reform.

The Kondratieff wave theory describes how societies develop in socio-economic waves of 40–60 years. The theory postulates a set of technologies and practices that are unique to each wave. Although a challenge of the Kondratieff wave theory is great variance in interpretations about the timing of the waves among scholars, based on several analyses we suggest that with the financial crisis of 2008, and resulting economic instability, we are experiencing the end of the fifth wave and the emergence of the sixth. We take as our starting point the global trends, particularly those of scarcity and the rising cost of commodities such as energy and raw materials that have led to a widely shared hypothesis that resource productivity will be the key driver of technology and economic growth in the next wave. Socially, this driver will be fortified by growing environmental concerns since climate change and the destruction of natural ecosystems seem inevitably to proceed. Both these sources are boosting a generation of new companies and behaviour. In this article our focus is to evaluate weak signals that point to possible directions for the future of organisational practices in the sixth Kondratieff wave. We ask what will be the effects of the changing socio-technical landscape on the working life and organisational culture. The K-waves theory explains how certain ways of organising that have so far developed in the fringes of organisational culture may move into the mainstream, as a product of the systemic restructuring that has often accompanied the new K-wave. We present our findings from a workshop with representatives of five different resource efficiency oriented organisations in the Silicon Valley area. Based on the data we have gathered through the workshop and complementing interviews, we show how organisations base their considerations about the future to a surprisingly large extent on ethical arguments. Our material also includes a case that shows that this ethical approach is not self-evidently related to the aim for resource efficiency. We evaluate our results in the Future Sign – framework presented by Hiltunen. The signals we have gathered are combined with corporate shared value – thinking, and both are interpreted through the Kondratieff – wave theory. Based on our sample of five cases, along with a framework that supports our interpretation, we suggest the ethical motivations as backbone of organisations is a relatively strong future sign that has potential for strengthening in the sixth wave context.

Coal resource is one of the energy resources with large reserves in the world, and its exploitation and consumption rank among the highest energy development. China is both a great coal producer and consumer. Due to rapid economic and social development as well as resource distribution characteristics with more coal and less oil, coal energy will always dominate China's energy consumption. However, water resource, as the support element and basic ecological element of coal development, is both accelerated and affected by the exploitation of coal resource, which has caused a series of problems related to water. In the face of water deficit as well as large demand of coal resource and its influence on water resource and ecological environment during its exploitation, therefore, this paper analyzes the functional relation between coal energy development and water resource in terms of the space distribution of China's coal and water resources, the consumption of coal resource exploitation on water resource and a series of problems caused; and puts forward the countermeasures to coordinate regional economic, ecological and environmental development based on balanced development of coal production and consumption areas by synthesizing the reverse distribution of such space distribution and the unbalanced distribution characteristics of coal consumption and production areas.

The suggested model describes the optimal management of a manufacturing system (a firm, region, or industry) that consumes a scarce natural resource and replaces obsolete productive assets with new resource-efficient ones. The model includes resource-saving embodied technological change, a varying resource price, and environmental quotas on resource consumption. Mathematically, it leads to the infinite-horizon optimal control of nonlinear integral equations with unknown integration limits. A steady-state analysis of the model addresses environmentally sustainable manufacturing and provides important implications for both firm and government decision-making.

Re-use implies recovering items from the waste stream to use them in identical or similar processes, mostly at consumer level. Currently, re-use is restricted to niches, but by 2020 the European Commission wants to mainstream re-use as a waste management option to increase resource efficiency. Ecologically oriented work integration social enterprises focussing on re-use (re-use ECO-WISEs) might help accomplish as they not only intend to re-integrate marginalised people into the labour market, but provide comprehensive re-use services (e.g. repair) and thus constitute a novel kind of Sustainable Product–Service System (SPSS). This paper contributes to a scientific framework for re-use ECO-WISEs by linking existing theoretical knowledge on SPSS to novel knowledge from three cases representing the variety of re-use ECO-WISEs in Austria. For analysis we use the so-called Business Model Canvas, adding a comprehensive stakeholder consideration. Results show that re-use ECO-WISEs contribute to all three dimensions of sustainability by helping reduce waste and increasing resource productivity and by providing jobs and affordable goods for disadvantaged people. Full implementation, however, will need additional efforts from all stakeholders involved, including the ECO-WISEs themselves, but also public authorities and society at large.

The construction industry already recognises the strong business case for improving resource productivity. It is associated with circular economy system (CE), propagated by the European Union. Circular economy systems keep the added value in products for as long as possible and virtually eliminate waste. Transition to a more circular economy requires changes throughout value chains, from product design to new business and market models, from new ways of turning waste into a resource to new modes of consumer behaviour. These actions relate to all industries, including the construction industry. Nowdays, the increase in demand for construction materials as a result of development has called for an alternative way to develop or derive construction materials from different sources, including sewage sludge ash (SSA). SSA is produced after the firing process of sewage sludge, and it must be disposed by other means. Researches were already accomplished investigating the use of sewage sludge ash for the building materials manufacturing, such as produce bricks and tiles, as a raw materials for cement production, as aggregates for concrete and mortar, as a component of the synthesis of lightweight materials and as substitute for sand and/or cement in cement stabilized bases, subbases and embankments in road constuctions. A detailed description of each application as a way towards a circular economy is presented in this paper.

Despite efforts to achieve food security in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since the 1970s, food insufficiency continues to plague the region. As of 2014 more than a fifth of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population remain food insecure according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). The food security challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa are linked to economic, agro-ecological, technological/agronomic, institutional and related factors. These causes however overlay complex interactions and constraints within the key physical resources of Water Land and Energy (WLE), which are necessary for food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The relationship between the WLE interactions and the performance of SSA’s food systems, and the impacts of interventions at different scales are not yet fully understood, particularly in light of the need to maintain essential ecosystem services. This study employs an integrated multi-scale Food System resource analysis approach to examine Uganda’s WLE resource constraints vis-a-vis 2012 and 2050 agricultural resource demand at national, district and local scales, as a test case for Sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis identifies where the competing WLE resource constraints are and the variations from local (sub-county), regional, to national scale so that potential policy interventions can be appropriately targeted. The approach involves a combination of geo-spatial analysis, calorific-demand analysis and Source-to-Service resource transformation modelling. The results are visualised using coupled Sankey diagrams and resource stress maps. The analysis reveals the current competing demands and constraints at different scales, and helps to identify key resource intervention areas to resolve resource stress in Uganda’s food system. The inferences highlight variations in the significance of resource stress at different analytical resolutions and constraints at different locations for the WLE resources. Overall, the analysis helps to inform food security policy and the resource context for the present and future management of Uganda’s food system.

By strengthening material metabolism among collocated enterprises in leading industrial production chains in eco-industrial parks (EIPs), an industrial symbiosis (IS) system can be constructed, which is effective in strengthening the circular economy (CE). It has become important for EIPs to quantitatively evaluate the CE performance of the production chain while also seeking specific measures that could promote resources utilization efficiency. In this paper, we combine the substance flow analysis (SFA) approach with the resource productivity (RP) indicator to evaluate the contribution of IS to the development of circular economy. Through questionnaires and field surveys of key enterprises in Suzhou New District (SND), a substance flow analysis and resource productivity indicator were developed for core materials (copper, water and energy) in printed circuit boards (PCB) production under the excluding waste utilization scenario and including waste utilization scenario. The results show that the RPCu of chain from electrolytic copper production enterprises (ECPE) to electrolytic copper foil production enterprises is respectively 21.38 and 23.15 thousand yuan per ton, from ECPE to copper clad laminate (CCL) production enterprises is respectively 64.15 and 71.32 thousand yuan per ton, and from ECPE to PCB production enterprises is respectively 176.47and 211.21 thousand yuan per ton under the two scenarios. RP is enhanced by prolonging the industrial production chain and the RP under the excluding waste utilization scenario is higher than the including waste utilization scenario for the same chain, which can be achieved through greater IS. Finally we propose further implications on developing CE in EIPs.

Marine capture fishery in Kenya is small contributing only 4% to the overall fish production in the Country. This is because the fishery is artisanal characterized by relatively simple gears and vessels and has as yet received little attention due to the limited understanding of its contribution to coastal livelihoods. Nevertheless the Kenyan reefs are considered to be among the most heavily exploited reefs in East Africa. A review of the coastal artisanal fisheries landings for the past sixty years indicates that significant changes have occurred in the fisheries. There has been an increase in effort evidenced by the increased number of fishers, fishing vessels and change in fishing gears. Overall the landings have remained relatively stable over the past decade fluctuating between 5000 tonnes and slightly more than 8000 tonnes annually which are within the range of the predicted sustainable limit of the fishery based on both the Schaefer and fox model prediction of the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). Our estimate of MSY (8264–8543) and the corresponding effort of 11,171–15,467 fishers, derived from the Schaefer and Fox models, would suggest that yields higher than the presently obtained levels cannot be expected in future and that the inter annual variation in total landings may have to do with environmentally triggered changes in resource productivity. The model results also suggest that the overall effort of the present fishery already exceeds sustainable effort levels by at least 20%, suggesting a general state of overfishing. Therefore, there is an urgent need to not only apply stricter gear restrictions but also regulate new entrants in to the fishery while improving on the collection and monitoring of catch and effort data.

Co-management, or regulatory decision-making through collaboration among user-groups, government officials, and scientists, has been proposed as an effective marine management tool in the face of environmental change. One potential advantage attributed to co-management is that such systems may have greater adaptive capacity than more conventional top-down management regimes. However, it is difficult to empirically test the relative adaptability of co-managed systems in the real world. This research uses a case study of the soft-shell clam fishery in Maine to investigate the question: Are co-managed systems better able to adapt to environmental change than are conventionally managed systems? This fishery provides an ideal system with which to address this question because (1) it is differentially managed, with some municipalities engaging in co-management and some in state management and (2) it faces an imminent environmental threat in the form of invasive predatory green crabs. This research first explores the scope of the green crab invasion in Maine, showing that although there have been no detectible impacts of green crabs on clam harvests to date, geographic overlaps of highly productive clam fisheries and high crab densities suggest a high likelihood of future impact. Second, to assess relative adaptability to this threat, this study quantifies differences between state- and co-managed systems across three attributes: user group stability, resource productivity, and institutional capacity to respond to change. It finds that co-managed clam fisheries have a higher degree of stability (i.e., a well defined user group), higher and more consistent productivity (i.e., more resources and incentives for sustained management), and greater institutional capacity to respond to change in the form of “conservation hours,” a flexible management tool employed in co-managed fisheries. These results indicate that co-managed clam fisheries are better prepared to adapt to environmental change than are conventionally managed fisheries.