Abstract
The International Resource Panel (IRP) was established as an expert scientific panel by UNEP in 2007. By using a material flow analysis perspective, the primary focus of the IRP is on global resource use and potential alternatives. The notion of a ‘third great transformation’ was deployed to suggest that the work of the IRP is documenting the endgame of the industrial socio-metabolic regime. Three clusters of reports were addressed: (a) global resource perspectives, with special reference to decoupling rates of economic growth from rates of resource use by focusing on the importance of resource productivity; (b) nexus themes, including cities, food, trade, and GHG mitigation technologies; and (c) specific resource challenges with respect to two clusters of issues, namely metals and ecosystem services. The conclusion reached is that a resource-use perspective adds to our understanding of the unsustainability of the current global system, complementing the outputs of climate science on the effects of anthropogenic carbon emissions and ecosystem science on the implications of biodiversity degradation. To this extent, the work of the IRP anticipates the possibility of a more resource efficient socio-metabolic order. However, the IRP has to date not addressed specifically the dynamics and modalities of transition from an institutional and macro-economic perspective.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
References
Airoldi, Marco; Biscarini, Lamberto; Saracina, Vito, 2010: The Global Infrastructure Challenge: Top Priorities for the Public and Private Sectors (Milan: Boston Consulting Group).
Angel, Shlomo, 2012: Planet of Cities. (Hollis, NH: Puritan Press).
Barles, Sabine, 2009: “Urban Metabolism of Paris and its Region”. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 13,6: 898–913.
Barles, Sabine, 2010: “Society, Energy and Materials: The Contribution of Urban Metabolism Studies to Sustainable Urban Development Issues”, in: Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 53,4: 439–455.
Bringezu, Stefan; Schutz, Helmut; Pengue, Walter; O’Brien, Maghan; Garcia, Fernando; Sims, Ralph; Howarth, Robert; Kauppi, Lea; Swilling, Mark; Herrick, Jeffrey, 2014: Assessing Global Land use: Balancing Consumption with Sustainable Supply (Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme).
Brynjolfsson, Erik; McAffee, Andrew, 2014: The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (New York; London: W. W. Norton Co.).
Castells, Manuel, 2009: Communication Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Castells, Manuel, 2012: Networks of Outrage and Hope (Cambridge, UK: Polity).
Collier, Paul, 2010: “The Political Economy of Natural Resources”, in: Social Research, 77,4: 1105-1132.
Costa, Alessandro; Marchettini, Nadia; Facchini, Angelo, 2004: “Developing the Urban Metabolism Approach into a New Urban Metabolic Model”, in: Marchettini, Nadia; Brebbia Carlos; Tiezzi, Enzo; Wadhwa, Lal C. (Eds.): The Sustainable City III (London: WIT Press).
Cotula, Lorenzo; Vermeulen, Sonja; Leonard, Rebeca; Keeley, James, 2009: Land Grab or Development Opportunity? Agricultural Investment and International Land Deals in Africa (London: International Instituted for Environment and Development; FAO; International Fund for Agricultural Development).
Crutzen, Paul J., 2002: “The Anthropocene: Geology and Mankind”, in: Nature, 415: 23.
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, 2012: World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision. New York: United Nations.
Doshi, Viren, Schulam, Gary; Gabaldon, Daniel, 2007: “Lights! Water! Motion!”, in: Strategy and Business, 47:39–53.
European Commission, 2011: Life and Resource Efficiency: Decoupling Growth from Resource Use (Luxembourg: European Commission).
Ferrao, Paulo; Fernandez, John. E., 2013: Sustainable Urban Metabolism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina, 1998: “Society’s Metabolism: The Intellectual History of Materials Flow Analysis, Part I, 1860–1970”. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2,1: 61–78.
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina, 1999: “Society’s Metabolism: The Intellectual History of Materials Flow Analysis, Part II, 1970–1998”. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2,4: 107–136.
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina, 2011: “Analysing Sustainability Transitions as a Shift between Socio-Metabolic Regimes”. Environmental Transition and Societal Transitions, 1: 152–159.
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina; Dittrich, Monika; Eisenmenger, Nina; Ekins, Paul; Fulton, Julian; Kastner, Thomas; Schandl, Heinz; West, Jim; Wiedman, Thomas, 2015: International Trade in Resources: A Biophysical Assessment. Report for the International Resource Panel (Nairobi: UNEP).
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina; Haberl, Helmut, 2007: Socioecological Transitions and Global Change: Trajectories of Social Metabolism and Land use (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar).
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina; Swilling, Mark, 2011: Decoupling Natural Resource use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth. Report for the International Resource Panel. Paris: United Nations Environment Programme.
Food and Agriculture Organization, 1996: World Food Summit: Rome Declaration on World Food Security (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization); at: <http://www.fao.org/WFS> (19 January 2014).
Food and Agriculture Organization, 2013: The State of Food and Agriculture 2013: Better Systems for Better Nutrition (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization).
Foxon, Timothy J., 2011: “A Coevolutionary Framework for Analysing a Transition to a Sustainable Low Carbon Economy”, in: Ecological Economics, 70: 2258–2267.
Freeman, Chris; Louca, Francisco, 2001: As Time Goes by: From Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Geels, Frank W., 2002: “Technological Transitions as Evolutionary Reconfiguration Processes: A Multi-Level Perspective and a Case-Study”, in: Research Policy, 31,8-9: 1257–1274.
German Advisory Council on Global Change, 2011: World in Transition: A Social Contract for Sustainability (Berlin: German Advisory Council on Global Change).
Giampietro, Mario; Mayumi, Kozo; Sorman, Alvegul. H., 2012: Metabolic Pattern of Societies: Where Economists Fall Short. Abingdon; New York: Routledge.
Gore, Charles, 2010: “Global Recession of 2009 in a Long-Term Development Perspective”, in: Journal of International Development, 22: 714–738.
Haberl, Helmut; Fischer-Kowalski, Marina; Krausmann, Fridolin; Martinez-Alier, Joan; Winiwarter, Verena, 2011: “A Socio-Metabolic Transition Towards Sustainability? Challenges for another Great Transformation”, in: Sustainable Development, 19: 1–14.
Hajer, Maarten, 2014: “On being Smart about Cities: Seven Considerations for a New Urban Planning and Design”, in: Maarten, Hajer (Ed.): Smart About Cities: Visualizing the Challenge for 21st Century Urbanism (Amsterdam: Forthcoming).
Hajer, Maarten; Dassen, Ton, 2014: SMART about Cities: Visualising the Challenge for 21st Century Urbanism (Rotterdam: NAI and PBL).
Hajer, Maarten; Westhoek, Henk; Ozay, Leyla; Ingram, James; van Berkum, Siemen, 2015: Food Systems and Natural Resources. Report for the International Resource Panel (Paris: UNEP).
Hertwich, Edgar G; Gibon, Thomas; Arveson, Anders; Bayer, Peter; Bouman, Evert; Bergersen, Joe; Heath, Garvin; Aloisi de Larderel, Jacqueline S.; Ramirez, Andrea; Suh, Sangwon, 2015: Green Energy Choices: The Benefits, Risks, and Trade-Offs of Low Carbon Technologies for Electricity Production—Technical Summary. Report for the Intertional Resource Panel (Paris: UNEP).
Heynen, Nikolas; Kaika, Maria; Swyngedouw, Erik, 2006: In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism (London - New York: Routledge).
International Resource Panel Working Group on Global Metal Flows, 2013: E-Book: International Resource Panel Work on Global Metal Flows. Report for the International Resource Panel (Nairobi: UNEP).
Jackson, Tim, 2009: Prosperity without Growth? The Transition to a Sustainable Economy. (United Kingdom: Sustainable Development Commission).
Kennedy, Christopher; Pincetl, Stephanie; Bunje, Paul, 2011: “The Study of Urban Metabolism and its Applications to Urban Planning and Design”, in: Environmental Pollution, 159: 1965–1973.
Köhler, Jonathan, 2012: “A Comparison of the Neo-Schumpeterian Theory of Kondratiev Waves and the Multi-Level Perspective on Transitions”, in: Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 3: 1–15.
Kuecker, Glen David, 2013: Building the Bridge to the Future: New Songdo City from a Critical Urbanism Perspective. SOAS University of London Centre of Korean Studies Workshop on New Songdo City and South Korea’s Green Economy: An Uncertain Future: London, 5 June 2013.
Lambin, Eric F.; Meyfroidt, Patrick, 2011: “Global Land use Change, Economic Globalization, and the Looming Land Scarcity”, in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 108,9: 3465–3472.
Luque, Andres; Marvin, Simon; McFarlane, Colin, 2013: Smart Urbanism: Cities, Grids and Alternatives?, in: Hodson, Mike; Marvin, Simon (Eds.): After Sustainable Cities? (London – New York: Routledge).
McKinsey Global Institute, 2011: Resource Revolution: Meeting the World’s Energy, Materials, Food, and Water Needs (McKinsey Global Institute); at: <http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/sustainability.aspx> (6 December 2011).
Morin, Edgar, 1999: Homeland Earth (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press).
Murray, James; King, David, 2012: “Oil’s Tipping Point has Passed”, in: Nature, 481: 433–435.
Perez, Carlota, 2009: “The Double Bubble at the Turn of the Century: Technological Roots and Structural Implications”, in:. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 33: 779-805.
Perez, Carlota, 2002: Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (Cheltenham, UK: Elgar).
Piketty, Thomas, 2014: Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press).
Poli, Roberto, 2014: “Anticipation: A New Thread for the Human and Social Sciences?”, in: CADMUS, 2,3: 23–36.
Ramaswami, Anu; Weible, Christopher; Main, Deborah; Heikkila, Tanya; Siddiki, Saba; Duvall, Andrew; Pattison, Andrew; Bernard, Meghan, 2012: “A Social-Ecological-Infrastructural Systems Framework for Interdisciplinary Study of Sustainable City Systems”, in: Journal of Industrial Ecology, 16,6: 801–813.
Robinson, Blake; Musango, Josephine; Swilling, Mark; Joss, Simon; Mentz-Lagrange, Sasha, 2013: Urban Metabolism Assessment Tools for Resource Efficient Cities. Report commissioned by Global Initiative for Resource Efficient Cities hosted by UNEP. Stellenbosch: Sustainability Institute; at: <http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.net/newsdocs/document-downloads/cat_view/23-research-project-outputs> (1 July 2014).
Scherr, Sara, 1999: Soil Degradation: A Threat to Developing-Country Food Security by 2020?. Food, Agriculture and the Environment Discussion Paper 63 (Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute); at: <http://www.env-edu.gr/Documents/Soil%20Degradation%20-%20A%20Threat%20to%20Developing-Country%20-%20Food%20Security%20by%202020.pdf> (12 April 2008).
Siemens, PWC; Berwin Leighton Paisner, 2014: Investor Ready Cities: How Cities can Create and Deliver Infrastructure Value (city: Siemens – PWC – Berwin Leighton Paisner); at: <http://www.pwc.com/en_GX/gx/psrc/publications/assets/pwc-investor-ready-cities-v1.pdf> (6 April 2015).
Smil, Vaclav, 2014: Making the Modern World: Materials; Dematerialization (Chichester, UK: Wiley).
Swilling, Mark; Robinson, Blake; Marvin, Simon; Hodgson, Mike, 2013: City-Level Decoupling: Urban Resource Flows and the Governance of Infrastructure Transitions. Paris: United Nations Environment Programme; at: <http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/Publications/AreasofAssessment/Cities/tabid/106447/Default.aspx>.
Swilling, Mark, 2013a: “Beyond the Resource Curse: From Resource Wars to Sustainable Resource Management in Africa”, in: Minderman, G.; Raman, V.; Cloete, F.; Woods, G. (Eds.): Good, Bad and Next in Public Governance (The Hague: Elevent International Publishing).
Swilling, Mark, 2013b: “Economic Crisis, Long Waves and the Sustainability Transition: An African Perspective”, in: Environmental Innovations and Societal Transitions, 6: 95–115.
Swilling, Mark; Annecke, Eve, 2012: Just Transitions: Explorations of Sustainability in an Unfair World (Cape Town - Tokyo: UCT Press; United Nations University Press).
Swyngedouw, Erik, 2006: “Metabolic Urbanization: The Making of Cyborg Cities”. in: Heynen, Nikolas; Kaika, Maria; Swyngedouw, Erik (Eds.): In the Nature of Cities (London: Routledge).
UNEP, 2010: Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production: Priority Products and Materials. A Report of the Working Group on the Environmental Impacts of Products and Materials to the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management (Paris: UNEP).
UNEP, 2014: Decoupling 2: Technologies Opportunities and Policy Options (Paris: UNEP).
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, 2003: The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements (London: Earthscan).
Urama, Kevin, 2015: Water Decoupling Report. Unpublished report for the International Resource Panel (Paris: UNEP).
Weisz, Helga; Steinberger, Julia. K., 2010: “Reducing Energy and Materials Flows in Cities”, in: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2: 185–192.
Wiedman, Thomas O.; Schandl, Heinz; Lenzen, Manfred; Moran, Daniel; Suh, Sangwon; West, James; Kanemoto, Keiichiro, 2013: “The Material Footprint of Nations”, in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, vol.,issue (date): pages; at: <www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220362110>.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2014: The Urban Infrastructure Initiative (Geneva: World Business Council for Sustainable Development).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Swilling, M. (2016). Preparing for Global Transition: Implications of the Work of the International Resource Panel. In: Brauch, H., Oswald Spring, Ú., Grin, J., Scheffran, J. (eds) Handbook on Sustainability Transition and Sustainable Peace . Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43884-9_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43884-9_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-43882-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-43884-9
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)