Resource Efficiency and Service Provision

Abstract

This paper addresses the possibility that improvements in energy and resource efficiency, together with a move towards the service economy, could help to stimulate the more profound social changes needed for sustainable development. The vision of resource efficiency improvements proposed in Factor Four and Natural Capitalism is discussed. It is argued that the key novel ingredient is the idea of moving towards a service economy, based upon the provision and sale of services, such as thermal comfort instead of energy, domestic services instead of appliances, and information services instead of printed matter. It is argued that this could lead to new relations between consumers and suppliers, a move towards sufficiency as well as efficiency, and could contribute significantly to moves towards more environmentally sustainable development.

Circular Economy in the WEEE industry: a systematic literature review and a research agenda

“…Despite the first article being published in 2000 (Foxon, 2000), the number of publications started to increase in 2005 (Figure 2). CE has grown considerably in the last few years, having a prevailing role over other sustainability streams from 2017 onwards.…”

“…washing machines). Promoting the development of efficient models is generally achieved through policy instruments such as energy and eco label to drive consumers' purchasing choices (Alborzi et al, 2017a;O'Connell et al, 2013;Sammer and Wüstenhagen, 2006), product design efforts (Barba-Gutiérrez et al, 2009;Quariguasi Frota Neto et al, 2010) or Servitization models such as pay-per-use or sharing, who facilitate users to access high quality products by overcoming their high upfront price (Bressanelli et al, 2018;Cooper, 2005;Foxon, 2000;Gnoni et al, 2017;Intlekofer et al, 2010). Secondly, extending EEE lifespan emerged as a strategy to reach 'material efficiency' since less products need to be produced (Gutowski et al, 2011;Hennies and Stamminger, 2016).…”

A comparison of four sustainable manufacturing strategies

“…Resource efficiency is actively being promoted by the UK government as part of its government policy for sustainable development (Foxon 2000). Resource efficiency is the strategy that 'strives for the efficient use, reduction of flow and consumption of resources drawn from nature' (Schmidt-Bleek 1996).…”

“…Some of the authors or organisations were selective in their terminology and used either resource efficiency (e.g. Foxon 2000, Wuppertal Institute 2002 or resource productivity (e.g. Pearce 2001, Schmidt-Bleek 1995, while some refer to both resource efficiency and resource productivity and sometimes use them interchangeably (e.g.…”

“…A criticism of resource efficiency is that although the strategy may be technologically possible, it requires economic and political action (such as incentives and regulatory regimes) (Reijnders 1998, Foxon 2000, Pearce 2001, Hawkins and Shaw 2004. This makes resource efficiency difficult to implement by a single organisation and acts as a barrier to its practicality for industry.…”