Lecture

Resource Efficiency: Efficiency and Decoupling

Graph Chat

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

Description

This lecture by the instructor explores the concept of resource efficiency, emphasizing how efficiency allows for more economic activity with limited resources. It delves into the decomposition of impact, intensity, and efficiency, using examples from energy consumption in Switzerland. The lecture also discusses the importance of substitution in reducing impact and the transition from efficiency to decoupling. Various forms of decoupling, such as relative and absolute decoupling, are explained in the context of resource intensity and efficiency. The presentation concludes with a discussion on the environmental intensity of the economy and the significance of decoupling in sustainable resource management.

This video is available exclusively on Mediaspace for a restricted audience. Please log in to MediaSpace to access it if you have the necessary permissions.

Watch on Mediaspace

Official source

Related concepts (29)

Resource consumption

Resource consumption is about the consumption of non-renewable, or less often, renewable resources. Specifically, it may refer to: water consumption energy consumption electric energy consumption world energy consumption natural gas consumption/gas depletion oil consumption/oil depletion logging/deforestation fishing/overfishing land use/land loss or resource depletion and general exploitation and associated environmental degradation Measures of resource consumption are resource intensity and resource efficiency.

Eco-economic decoupling

In economic and environmental fields, decoupling refers to an economy that would be able to grow without corresponding increases in environmental pressure. In many economies, increasing production (GDP) raises pressure on the environment. An economy that would be able to sustain economic growth while reducing the amount of resources such as water or fossil fuels used and delink environmental deterioration at the same time would be said to be decoupled.

Sustainable development

Sustainable development is an organizing principle that aims to meet human development goals while also enabling natural systems to provide necessary natural resources and ecosystem services to humans. The desired result is a society where living conditions and resources meet human needs without undermining the planetary integrity and stability of the natural system. Sustainable development tries to find a balance between economic development, environmental protection, and social well-being.

Sustainability

Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long time. Specific definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Experts often describe sustainability as having three dimensions (or pillars): environmental, economic, and social, and many publications emphasize the environmental dimension. In everyday use, sustainability often focuses on countering major environmental problems, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, and air and water pollution.

Energy consumption

Energy consumption is the amount of energy used. In the body, energy consumption is part of energy homeostasis. It derived from food energy. Energy consumption in the body is a product of the basal metabolic rate and the physical activity level. The physical activity level are defined for a non-pregnant, non-lactating adult as that person's total energy expenditure (TEE) in a 24-hour period, divided by his or her basal metabolic rate (BMR): Topics related to energy consumption in a demographic sense are: Wo

Related lectures (64)

Decoupling Economic Growth from Environmental Impact

Covers decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts, focusing on relative and absolute decoupling and their implications for sustainability.

Introduction & Global Warming

Addresses the major world challenge of primary energy consumption and the impact of CO2 emissions on global warming, local pollution, and loss of diversity.

Decoupling Economic Growth from Carbon Emissions

Addresses the need for significant CO2 intensity reduction to achieve climate targets while examining the interplay between economic growth and carbon emissions.

Urban Planning Principles MOOC: African cities I, An introduction to urban planning

Introduces ten basic principles for urban planning, focusing on pedestrians, spatial thinking, and resource efficiency.

Recycling and Sustainable Development: Challenges and Solutions