Berlin, 13 March 2015 - Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), has backed the German government's drive to encourage the G7 to embrace resource efficiency as a tool to promote prosperous economies and a healthy planet for generations to come.
The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) has been working closely with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWI) to make resource efficiency one of the core environmental themes of the federal government's agenda for the German G7 presidency.
The German government plans to propose the establishment of an alliance for resource efficiency to its G7 partners. This would be a forum for the G7 to exchange experience, make contacts, pool knowledge and improve coordination between policymaking and industry.
"We must ask ourselves what the consequences of current consumption patterns and trajectory of population growth-forecasted to reach nine billion by 2050-will be," Mr Steiner said during his speech to a High-Level Forum on Resource Efficiency in Berlin, which included Germany's Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Barbara Anne Hendricks.
"By 2009 we were extracting 68 billion tonnes of resources, compared to around 7 billion tonnes in 1900," he said. "Under current trends of population growth and expanding middles classes, global extraction of resources is set to reach 140 billion tonnes by 2050. This will probably exceed the availability and accessibility of resources, as well as the carrying capacity of the planet to absorb the impacts of their extraction and use."
"But there is still time to harness the remarkable ingenuity that has enabled our rapid progress," he added. "If we accept that there will only be enough resources for the world if we radically change our consumption and production patterns, incentivizing resource efficiency and decoupling resource use from environmental degradation will turn the challenges posed by our historical practices into enormous opportunities for the economies of G7 nations."
At the event, representatives of the G7 and approximately 150 representatives from business, government, academia and civil society discussed how metals and minerals can be used more efficiently to prevent negative environmental consequences and promote economic benefits.
The ultimate goal of the event was to develop common ideas, for the G7 summit at Schloss Elmau on 7 and 8 June, on how to increase resource efficiency worldwide, and which framework conditions would be helpful to achieve this.
"The careful and efficient use of natural resources is a mark of forward-looking societies in view of the fact that the world's population is growing," said Ms Hendricks. "This growth also means that the burden on the climate and environment is increasing too. For everyone to enjoy the same standards of living as we do, we have to make more efficient use of our resources worldwide and achieve more with less. We will work to achieve this goal in the G7."
UNEP hosts the International Resource Panel, which highlights technological opportunities and policy options for countries to reap the environmental and economic benefits of increased resource productivity.
Many decoupling technologies and techniques that deliver significant resource productivity increases are already commercially available. They allow economic output to be achieved with fewer resource inputs, reducing waste and saving costs. In turn, this contributes to further expanding the economy or reducing its exposure to risks, such as resource scarcity and price volatility.
UNEP also works in many other areas of resource efficiency, including through the Ten-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns (10YFP). The 10YFP is building more evidence and finding new solutions through its first five programmes, which are engaging 143 governments, non-governmental organizations and business associations.
