Abstract
Without natural resources, life itself is impossible. From birth to death, natural resources, transformed for human use, feed, clothe, shelter, and transport us. …Without abundant resources, prosperity is out of reach.
Gifford Pinchot
The previous chapter addressed the sustainability implications of economic affluence, the A term in the IPARX identity (Equation (1.1), repeated below for convenience). Because the economy is society’s metabolism, economic growth and increasing affluence mean increasing use of natural resources and emission of wastes. This chapter explores the sustainability implications of acquisition and consumption of resources, which, when divided by GDP, becomes the resource intensity of the economy (R).
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Van Antwerp, J., Heun, M.K. (2022). Resource Intensity of Economic Activity (R). In: A Framework for Sustainability Thinking. Synthesis Lectures on Sustainable Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79179-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79179-6_5
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