Reducing Society's Need For Material Input: Thomas Ruddy

Reducing Society's Need for
Material Input
Thomas Ruddy
EMPA Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials
Testing and Research, Sustainable Information
Technologies Unit
http://www.empa.ch/sit
thomas.ruddy@empa.ch 1
From concept and goals...
...to indicators and models
• The Earth Summit in Rio established central

concepts such as sustainable development.
• Now there are more concrete goals for
operationalizing that concept.
• Millennium Development Goals (MDG, see
handout for details)
From concept and goals...
...to indicators and models
• Indicators of dispersion of Information and

(tele)Communications Technology (ICT)
• Indicators of environmental degradation and
the potential for dematerializing inputs
– subgroup: dematerialization using ICT
My argument /Table of Contents (1 of 2)
1. The World Summit on the Information society (WSIS)

wants to harness ICT for economic/social development.
2. But development should be seen in relation to the
environment.
3. So shouldn’t the environment be included as a topic in
WSIS?
4. Millennium Development Goals and how ICT and
environment indicators could be correlated for maximum
synergy
My argument /Table of Contents (2 of 2)
5. WSIS indicators of ICT dispersion
6. Three world models of sustainability and two

European sets of dematerialization indicators, one of
them involving ICT
7. The public has trouble grasping these models.
8. The role of elites -- such as engineers -- in

explaining world models to the public
1. The World Summit on the Information
society (WSIS) wants to harness ICT for
economic/social development.
Knowledge for development
• Knowledge for development has a
subsystem called ICT for development,
which will be a central theme at the World
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
Scientific discourse (top) and
public discourse (below)
Scientific discourse
Univ
Developing
Knowledge
. base Industrialized
country
country
databases Private sector
Scientific Media
community (print,
broadcast,
CS w/ PD
ICT)
media Civil society with its public
(political) discourse
Transfer of knowledge for
development
• Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT) have a role to play in:
– scientific discourses, and in
– public discourses in civil society (through the media)
• Both types of discourse can be found in both
industrialized and developing countries.
• But in the case of scientific discourse the barriers
to the transfer of knowledge and technology from
industrialized to developing countries are high.
2. But development should be seen
in relation to the environment.
3. So shouldn’t the environment be included as a

topic in WSIS?
• The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
offer a consensus on environmental values.
4. Millennium Development Goals and how
ICT and environment indicators could be
correlated for maximum synergy (1 of 3)
4.a. The broad, aggregated approach: Reaching the

MDGs could be facilitated by “Reducing Society's
Need for Material Input”, a process known as
dematerialization.
– What is the source of environmental degradation? Mass
flows are considered more basic than energy.
– Material Intensity Per Service unit (MIPS, Schmidt-Bleek,
von Weizsaecker, see handout)
– Long-term changes, many necessitating structural change
Examples of materialization
• “Photocopying, advertising, poor quality,
high repair costs and wealth, in general force
materialization” (Herman et al., see handout).
This forms part of the paperless office
paradox to be mentioned later....
• The spatial dispersion of population increases
material intensity. This forms part of the
telecommuting example...
The need to reduce material
intensity
information intensity
today
material & energy
intensity
yesterday
labour
intensity Source: http://www.empa.ch/sit
4.b. What do ICTs have to do with dematerialization?

– classic examples: reducing paper consumption by
computers, and
– reducing fuel consumption by telecommuting
(Schallaböck et al., 2003, see handout)
Types of dematerialization obtainable through
Information Society Technologies (IST)
Direct impact on material Material intensity of ISTs’

intensity of economy product life cycles
Optimization potential
Indirect impact on material
intensity of economy Substitution potential
Induction potential (rebound
effect)
1. Optimization of processes
Truck routes can be optimized:

dynamic vehicle routing
Books are printed on demand.
In agriculture fertilizer can be

adapted to soil conditions: precision
farming.
2. Substitution of signal
transmission for the movement of
mass
Paper can be replaced by electronic
media. Example: AT&T saves 15 million
letters a year thanks to B2B and B2C.
Passenger taffic can be replaced by

telecommunication: telework,
telelearning, telemedicine,
videoconferences, ...
4.c. The rebound effect. Technology alone is not enough.

Technology lowers prices, boosting consumption,
offsetting gains. Behaviour incentives are also needed
from policy makers to keep progress going.
4.d. Besides, the South needs co-financing to afford

development without materialization (Radermacher, see
handout)
MDG 7 Ensure environmental sustainability
•Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and
program and reverse the loss of environmental resources
• Change in land area covered by forest
• Land area protected to maintain biological diversity
• GDP per unit of energy use
• Carbon dioxide emissions (per capita)
•Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe

drinking water
• Proportion of population with sustainable access to an improved
water source
•Have achieved, by 2020, a significant improvement in the lives of at least

100 million slum dwellers
• Proportion of population with access to improved sanitation
• Proportion of population with access to secure tenure
Source: World Bank Group, http://www.developmentgoals.org/About_the_goals.htm

View of World Bank consultant John Daly (1 of 2)
• Daly’s approach is less aggregated than dematerialization
and can be implemented on a shorter term. It is more
intuitive and can be related directly to MDGs:
• population pressure: “the empowerment and education of
women, the likely survival of children, the returns on investment in
education, etc. ... can be influenced by ICT;”
• energy efficiency: “ICT was critical to the technological
changes involved in achieving the desired efficiency improvements.”
This is the item closest to dematerialization, but it does not
consider energy’s counterpart mass.
• national policy: “ICT is a fundamental tool for policy
analysis and decision support;” (John Daly, see handout)
View of World Bank consultant John Daly (2 of 2)
• resources: “conservation and restoration programs are guided by
information and analyses depending on ICT,”
• deforestation: “achieving sustainable high agricultural and

silvacultural yields can also involve ICT;”
• land tenure, urbanization: “ICT have proved invaluable

in developing improved tenure systems, including in mapping lands, in
recording land ownership, and in simplifying transactions involving
registering and transferring tenure;”
• drinking water: “[water suppliers’] functions -- from the

construction of reservoirs and tapping of ground water sources, to the
building and maintaining of distribution systems, to the assurance of
water quality -- have all benefited from ICT applications,” (John Daly,
see handout)
5. WSIS indicators of ICT access
• The digital divide is shown in ITU's

Telecommunication Indicator Reports
• Examples of data on e-commerce:
– Harvard e-readiness
– UNCTAD E-Commerce and Development
Report (see handout)
• WSIS statistical workshop held by UNECE/
UNCTAD/ UIS/ ITU/ OECD/ EUROSTAT
6.a. Three world models of sustainability
• The World 3 systems dynamics model in the 1972 book
”Limits to Growth” co-authored by Dennis Meadows.
• The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)
• Corey Lofdahl’s model of the environmental impacts of
globalization and trade, 2002, Cambridge, strives to
reconcile the classic debate of ecology vs. the economy
– 18th Century: Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and David
Ricardo
– 20th Century: Battle of Seattle at WTO Ministerial Meeting
– Lofdahl refutes statistician Lomborg’s claims (see handout)
Operationalization must
hypothesize:
How we can bring
our economic/ social
environment...
..into harmony
with the natural
environment.
Three master variables used by
Lofdahl
Econ./ soc.environment
Population Resources Technology
Natural environment
Annual consumption per
inhabitant...
...of an ...of a
industrialized developing
Energy [GJ] 158 22 country
country
Cement [kg] 413 56
Aluminium [kg] 28 2
Steel [kg] 655 5
The controversial environmental
Environmental Kuznets curve
impact
Upcoming and dirty
Rich and clean

Poor and clean
Society‘s development time

IPAT
[Environmental]
Impact =
Population x Affluence x
Technology
Source: Dietz / Rosa
6.b. Two European sets of dematerialization
indicators, one of them involving ICT
• Dematerialization data from the Digital Europe project,
London
• Networks at the Sustainable Europe Research Institute
(SERI), Vienna (see handout)
7. The public has trouble grasping
these models.
• We find support for a project on electronic
waste (negative aspects of ICT use), but the
public and politicians have trouble grasping
the dematerialization model (positive
aspects).
8. The role of elites -- such as engineers -- in
explaining world models to the public

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Reducing Society's Need for

• The Earth Summit in Rio established central

• Indicators of dispersion of Information and

1. The World Summit on the Information society (WSIS)

6. Three world models of sustainability and two

7. The public has trouble grasping these models.

8. The role of elites -- such as engineers -- in

3. So shouldn’t the environment be included as a

4.a. The broad, aggregated approach: Reaching the

4.b. What do ICTs have to do with dematerialization?

Direct impact on material Material intensity of ISTs’

Truck routes can be optimized:

Books are printed on demand.

In agriculture fertilizer can be

Passenger taffic can be replaced by

4.c. The rebound effect. Technology alone is not enough.

4.d. Besides, the South needs co-financing to afford

•Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe

•Have achieved, by 2020, a significant improvement in the lives of at least

Source: World Bank Group, http://www.developmentgoals.org/About_the_goals.htm

• deforestation: “achieving sustainable high agricultural and

• land tenure, urbanization: “ICT have proved invaluable

• drinking water: “[water suppliers’] functions -- from the

• The digital divide is shown in ITU's

Population Resources Technology

Cement [kg] 413 56

Steel [kg] 655 5

Upcoming and dirty

Rich and clean

Society‘s development time

Source: Dietz / Rosa

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