The Link between Productivity and Sustainability - Circular Economy Concept

Proposition: Productivity improvement helps in preventing environmental degradation and promoting sustainability (planet, profits and people). 

The current efforts to prevent environmental degradation, to promote sustainability, and circular economy identify productivity improvement as one of the solutions to the problem They call for increased productivity and resource efficiency. Industrial engineers, productivity professionals in engineering have to respond to the demand and deliver the required services in various engineering based sectors of the economy. Productivity improvement of material, energy, information systems, machines and even labor (man) contribute to sustainability.

To achieve sustainable development, promoting productivity is a key issue.

For green transformations which aim to decouple the direct connection between human wellbeing, resource use and environmental degradation, the issue of improving resource productivity becomes increasingly important. Resource productivity is the quantity of a good or service that is obtained through the expenditure of a unit of resource.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, Japan uses only 0.3 kg of materials per 1 dollar of its GDP, compared to 6 kg in China, 4 kg in India and 9 kg in Vietnam.

What is the link between productivity, circular economy and the SDGs?
22 May 2017
Patrick Schröder
Research Fellow
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
https://www.ids.ac.uk/opinions/what-is-the-link-between-productivity-circular-economy-and-the-sdgs/



Supporting (and removing obstacles to) circular economy business models can provide a triple win:

increasing productivity and economic growth
improving the quality and quantity of employment
saving lives, by reducing environmental impacts such as water pollution, air pollution and climate change.

Virtuous Circle: How the Circular Economy Can Create Jobs and Save Lives in Low and Middle-income Countries
29 August 2016
https://www.ids.ac.uk/publications/virtuous-circle-how-the-circular-economy-can-create-jobs-and-save-lives-in-low-and-middle-income-countries/


Increasing productivity key to revive growth and support sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific
Asia Pacific needs to achieve major productivity gains to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and achieve inclusive growth -  UN ESCAP executive secretary Shamshad Akhtar.
28 April 2016
https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/increasing-productivity-key-to-revive-growth-and-support-sustainable-development-in-asia-and-the-pacific/

Full chapter: Increasing productivity for reviving economic growth and supporting
sustainable development - UNESCAP
https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/Chapter3_Survey2016_1_2.pdf

There are a number of practical steps that have the potential to improve decision making in this context

They involve improving:
the efficiency of resource use
our understanding of ecological systems
our ability to measure the capital stock.
Markulev, A. and Long, A. 2013 On sustainability: an economic approach, Staff Research Note, Productivity Commission, Canberra.
https://www.pc.gov.au/research/supporting/sustainability


Wuppertal Institute Research Project

"The Wuppertal Institute undertakes research and develops models, strategies and instruments for transitions to a sustainable development at local, national and international level. Sustainability research at the Wuppertal Institute focuses on the resources, climate and energy related challenges and their relation to economy and society. Special emphasis is put on analysing and stimulating innovations that decouple economic growth and wealth from natural resource use."

Increase of Resource Productivity as a Core Strategy for Sustainable Development

07/2005 - 06/2007

 The German Sustainability Strategy and the EU Sustainability Strategy alike intend to focus on an increase of resource productivity. Resource productivity is also an important factor for increasing competitiveness, innovations, environmental protection, and employment.

The project shall develop options on how to reconfigure the framework of economic action in connection with entrepreneurial and sectoral strategies aiming to result in a radical increase of resource productivity.

Three main theses constitute the project's background:

Thesis 1:
A significant increase of resource productivity requires an abolishment of counterproductive incentive structures and the establishment of supporting incentive systems instead. It has to be analysed where favourable incentives should be enforced and where, as far as possible, counterproductive shifting effects, e.g. negative rebound effects have to be reduced. The combination of financial, legal and informational incentives is crucial.

Thesis 2:
Parts of the economy actively work on the increase of resource productivity. Few successes of pioneers, however, do not suffice for followers and diffusion effects, the more so as signals of the economic framework are not precise. The task is to develop increase rates of resource productivity such as those realised in labour productivity systematically.


Thesis 3:
A new incentive structure is required for the increase of resource productivity. Its dynamic is essentially spurred by the private economy. It generates positive macroeconomic effects and minimises intersectoral and interregional shifting of environmental damages at the same time.

Work packages:

Advancement of information systems for the measuring of resource productivity
Identification of restraints, success factors and potentials beyond current trends
Development of incentive structures and instruments
Assessment of hypothetical microeconomic and sectoral enhancement potentials of resource productivity.
https://wupperinst.org/en/p/wi/p/s/pd/85/

Lightweighting - Material Productivity Improvement Method
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2019/02/lightweighting-material-productivity.html