Bridging the climate mitigation gap with economy-wide material productivity

Kate Scott; Jannik Giesekam; John Barrett; Anne Owen

doi:10.1111/jiec.12831

Bridging the climate mitigation gap with economy-wide material productivity

Kate Scott^*, Jannik Giesekam, John Barrett, Anne Owen

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

36 Citations (Scopus)

34 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Projections of UK greenhouse gas emissions estimate a shortfall in existing and planned climate policies meeting UK climate targets: the UK's mitigation gap. Material and product demand is driving industrial greenhouse gas emissions at a rate greater than carbon intensity improvements in the economy. Evidence shows that products can be produced with fewer carbon intensive inputs and demand for new products can be reduced. The economy-wide contribution of material productivity and lifestyle changes to bridging the UK's mitigation gap is understudied. We integrate an input-output framework with econometric analysis and case study evidence to analyse the potential of material productivity to help the UK bridge its anticipated emissions deficits, and the additional effort required to achieve transformative change aligned with 2 and 1.5°C temperature targets. We estimate that the emissions savings from material productivity measures are comparable to those from the Government's planned climate policy package. These additional measures could reduce the UK's anticipated emissions deficit up to 73%. The results demonstrate that material productivity deserves greater consideration in climate policy.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	918-931
Number of pages	14
Journal	Journal of Industrial Ecology
Volume	23
Issue number	4
Early online date	5 Dec 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12831
Publication status	Published - 31 Aug 2019
Externally published	Yes

Funding

information Funding for this research was provided by the ?End Use Energy Demand? (EUED) theme of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and undertaken by the Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products (CIE-MAP) (grant EP/N022645/1), the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (grant NE/R012881/1) and EPSRC (grant EP/R005052/1), the RCUK Energy Programme of the EPSRC (grant EP/R035288/1).We thank our partners Green Alliance, whose input and advice has been invaluable throughout the development of this research project. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Keywords

climate mitigation
demand reduction
emissions savings and climate policy
industrial ecology
material productivity

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1111/jiec.12831Licence: CC BY 4.0

Scott-etal-JIE-2019-Bridging-the-climate-mitigation-gap-with-economy-wide-material-productivityFinal published version, 528 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

@article{704d70200a644be5aa06e07dec552de2,

title = "Bridging the climate mitigation gap with economy-wide material productivity",

abstract = "Projections of UK greenhouse gas emissions estimate a shortfall in existing and planned climate policies meeting UK climate targets: the UK's mitigation gap. Material and product demand is driving industrial greenhouse gas emissions at a rate greater than carbon intensity improvements in the economy. Evidence shows that products can be produced with fewer carbon intensive inputs and demand for new products can be reduced. The economy-wide contribution of material productivity and lifestyle changes to bridging the UK's mitigation gap is understudied. We integrate an input-output framework with econometric analysis and case study evidence to analyse the potential of material productivity to help the UK bridge its anticipated emissions deficits, and the additional effort required to achieve transformative change aligned with 2 and 1.5°C temperature targets. We estimate that the emissions savings from material productivity measures are comparable to those from the Government's planned climate policy package. These additional measures could reduce the UK's anticipated emissions deficit up to 73%. The results demonstrate that material productivity deserves greater consideration in climate policy.",

keywords = "climate mitigation, demand reduction, emissions savings and climate policy, industrial ecology, material productivity",

author = "Kate Scott and Jannik Giesekam and John Barrett and Anne Owen",

note = "{\textcopyright} 2018 The Authors. Journal of Industrial Ecology, published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of Yale University. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited",

year = "2019",

month = aug,

day = "31",

doi = "10.1111/jiec.12831",

language = "English",

volume = "23",

pages = "918--931",

journal = "Journal of Industrial Ecology",

issn = "1088-1980",

publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",

number = "4",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Bridging the climate mitigation gap with economy-wide material productivity

AU - Scott, Kate

AU - Giesekam, Jannik

AU - Barrett, John

AU - Owen, Anne

N1 - © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Industrial Ecology, published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of Yale University. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

PY - 2019/8/31

Y1 - 2019/8/31

N2 - Projections of UK greenhouse gas emissions estimate a shortfall in existing and planned climate policies meeting UK climate targets: the UK's mitigation gap. Material and product demand is driving industrial greenhouse gas emissions at a rate greater than carbon intensity improvements in the economy. Evidence shows that products can be produced with fewer carbon intensive inputs and demand for new products can be reduced. The economy-wide contribution of material productivity and lifestyle changes to bridging the UK's mitigation gap is understudied. We integrate an input-output framework with econometric analysis and case study evidence to analyse the potential of material productivity to help the UK bridge its anticipated emissions deficits, and the additional effort required to achieve transformative change aligned with 2 and 1.5°C temperature targets. We estimate that the emissions savings from material productivity measures are comparable to those from the Government's planned climate policy package. These additional measures could reduce the UK's anticipated emissions deficit up to 73%. The results demonstrate that material productivity deserves greater consideration in climate policy.

AB - Projections of UK greenhouse gas emissions estimate a shortfall in existing and planned climate policies meeting UK climate targets: the UK's mitigation gap. Material and product demand is driving industrial greenhouse gas emissions at a rate greater than carbon intensity improvements in the economy. Evidence shows that products can be produced with fewer carbon intensive inputs and demand for new products can be reduced. The economy-wide contribution of material productivity and lifestyle changes to bridging the UK's mitigation gap is understudied. We integrate an input-output framework with econometric analysis and case study evidence to analyse the potential of material productivity to help the UK bridge its anticipated emissions deficits, and the additional effort required to achieve transformative change aligned with 2 and 1.5°C temperature targets. We estimate that the emissions savings from material productivity measures are comparable to those from the Government's planned climate policy package. These additional measures could reduce the UK's anticipated emissions deficit up to 73%. The results demonstrate that material productivity deserves greater consideration in climate policy.

KW - climate mitigation

KW - demand reduction

KW - emissions savings and climate policy

KW - industrial ecology

KW - material productivity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062221317&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/jiec.12831

DO - 10.1111/jiec.12831

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85062221317

SN - 1088-1980

VL - 23

SP - 918

EP - 931

JO - Journal of Industrial Ecology

JF - Journal of Industrial Ecology

IS - 4

ER -

Bridging the climate mitigation gap with economy-wide material productivity

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this