Asia’s raw material consumption unsustainable, UN warns

The Asia-Pacific region has surpassed the rest of the world in its consumption of materials and will continue to dominate world material flows, according to a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report.

The data indicate that at this rate, the region will be increasingly dependent on imports and unable to sustain its economies and lifestyles. The current rate of consumption is also having a negative impact on the environment.

The region’s trade balance indicates that the current rate of exploitation of its resource base is no longer sufficient to support its fast-growing economies and changing lifestyles. From 1970-2008, consumption of construction minerals increased 13.4 times, metal ores and industrial minerals consumption 8.6, fossil fuels 5.4, and biomass 2.7 times.

The report titled ‘Recent Trends in Material Flows and Resource Productivity in Asia and the Pacific’ presents an update of the 2011 “Resource Efficiency: Economics and Outlook for Asia and the Pacific” (REEO) report. It brings together data extending the latest reported year up to 2008 and thus includes the onset of the global financial |crisis.

The report found that the region is moving from biomass to a minerals-based economy, indicating that the most-populous countries like China and India are transitioning from agrarian to industrialized economies.

According to figures cited, China is responsible for over 60 per cent of the region’s total domestic material consumption, and India for 14 per cent. The rise in use of metal ores and industrial minerals use in India indicates that the country is entering a rapid acceleration phase in its transition to an industrialized economy, the UN agency notes.

Growing affluence and material intensity were the primary drivers of raw material consumption, and any attempts to regulate the industry would have to address both, the report stresses.

The report highlights the region’s material intensity – consumption of materials per US dollar of gross domestic product – as an area of serious concern, as this will increase pressures on the environment and exceed the region’s rapid growth. Currently, material intensity for Asia and the Pacific is three times that of the rest of the world.

“Each dollar of GDP requires an increasing amount of materials,” said Park Young-Woo, director of the UNEP Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. “The findings do not give signs of decoupling material consumption and natural-resource use from economic growth in the region.

“Resource efficiency needs to increase rapidly to offset material growth in the Asia-Pacific region, which needs systems innovations in urban areas, transportation modes, energy production and economic structure.”

Almost all of the world’s growth in domestic material consumption, from the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, can be attributed to the Asia-Pacific region, which now shapes the world trajectory on growth in material consumption, according to the report.

Domestic materials consumption increased from 6.2 billion tonnes to 37.5 billion tonnes between 1970 and 2008, an annual growth rate of 4.8 per cent. China and India heavily account for consumption by 2008, with China accounting for more than 60 per cent of the regional total domestic material consumption, and India contributing more than 14 per cent. The regional average per-capita material consumption now stands at 89 per cent of that of the rest of the world.

The report found that the region is moving from a biomass- to minerals-based economy, indicating that the most populous countries such as China and India are transitioning from agrarian to industrialised economies. Thailand is also falling into the same condition. Biomass dropped from more than half to 25 per cent of the region’s domestic extraction, while construction materials grew to 51.4 per cent.

Population growth was also found to be the least important driver of growing extractive pressures on the environment. Growing affluence and material intensity were cited as primary drivers and any effort to stabilise extractive pressure will need to address both, according to the report.

“The findings of the report conclude that countries in Asia and the Pacific face even greater challenges to make the transition of current economic growth patterns towards green growth, and to transform the economies into truly green economies, despite the strong efforts in development of policies and strategies by member countries,” Park said.

The report recommends the establishment a global harmonized database that shares material use data for all countries as an important step in helping policymakers and businesses anticipate resource issues, and to provide academia with reliable data to support decision makers with the policy relevant science.

In other reports released on April 24, UNEP states that the soaring demand for metals necessitates more sophisticated recycling practices to address the challenges of increasingly mixed metal products and their negative environmental impacts.

“Global metal needs will be three to nine times larger than all the metals currently used in the world,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said on the launch of the report titled, ‘Environmental Risks and Challenges of Anthropogenic Metals Flows and Cycles’ during a high-level dialogue on Resource Efficiency and Sustainable Management of Metals in Berlin.

“Product designers need to ensure that materials such as rare earth metals in products ranging from solar panels and wind turbine magnets to mobile phones can still be recovered easily when they reach the end of their life,” he added.

A mobile phone, for example, can contain more than 40 elements, including base metals such as copper and tin and precious and platinum-group metals such as silver, gold and palladium.

Another report launched at the event, entitled, ‘Metal Recycling – Opportunities, Limits, and Infrastructure’ outlines improvements that should be made to metal recycling systems to meet current and future needs.

That report notes that the potential for recycling is enormous but that current a huge amount of electrical and electronic equipment waste is generated during recycling, estimated at 20 to 50 million tonnes, or three to seven kilograms per person, each year.

Among the recommendations in the report, the authors suggest better means of separating out elements for recycling and of optimizing recycling production to avoid inefficiencies throughout the process.