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You might think that over the last couple of decades, production patterns and consumption choices have become much more sustainable.

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Take, for instance, today's LEDs, which use 10 times less energy than old incandescent light bulbs,

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or flat-screen TVs, which are much more efficient than the clunky carotid tube you might know from your grandparents' house,

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or cars, which are now more aerodynamic, lightweight, and have more fuel-efficient engines than

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back in the 1990s.

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There are many more examples of products that have become more efficient in recent years.

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With all these innovations, surely the environmental impact of air consumption has gone down, right?

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The answer is no.

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Despite all these improvements, air consumption and production patterns have overall become

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less sustainable.

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But why?

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The answer is complex but has a lot to do with what's called the rebound effect.

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Basically what happens is that an increase in technology efficiency may drive increase in

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consumption. Improvements in production patterns have made many products like cars and TVs more

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efficient and often cheaper too and in response to this we have been consuming them a lot more.

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Instead of one light bulb, we are now using multiple LEDs and in more places.

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New TVs are becoming larger and larger.

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And making cars more fuel-efficient allowed people to trade in their smaller cars for larger SUV-type models

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and made the smaller ones affordable for people who previously did not even own a car.

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As a result, roads are becoming more congested, making our commute even less sustainable.

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A rebound effect like these wipes out all of our gains in eco-efficiency.

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Hi, my name is Sami Kara and I'm a professor of sustainable manufacturing and life cycle

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engineering at the University of New South Wales School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.

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Sustainable development must consider environment, society and economy all at the same time.

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The well-known IPED equation supports an analysis of the challenge that central driving forces pose

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to the development of sustainable production and consumption patterns.

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It presents the total environmental impact I as a function of the central drivers represented by

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human population P, human effluents A, which can be interpreted here as a shorthand for consumption,

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and the technology factor t which can equate to here with production patterns

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to get an idea of how challenging it is to ensure environmental sustainability

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consider the following conditions for a sustainable climate change impact eye in 2050

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according to the ipcc we need to reduce our greenhouse gases emission in 2050 by up to 70

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of the current level to have a reasonable probability to stay below the two degree

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limits for global temperature rise set by the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile, the global production

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peak is predicted to increase by a factor of 1.4 to reach 9.75 billion in 2050. Average affluence A

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and therefore consumption 2 is expected to increase worldwide thanks to the economic growth

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of developing nations, and here a factor 2 seems to be a conservative estimate.

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To achieve a 70% reduction in impact I, the technology factor T has to compensate the

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increase in P and A, so the T needs to decrease by a factor close to 10.

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It's important to remember that the factors in the IPED equation are not independent.

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Consumption and production, or affluence and technology, often go hand in hand, and as

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As the examples of LEDs, TVs and cars illustrate, they can create a rebound effect in which

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major improvements in efficiency are outweighed by major increase in consumption.

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SDG 12 specifically addresses responsible consumption and production and aims to ensure

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sustainable consumption production patterns with some of the targets concerning sustainable

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management and efficient use of natural resources, halving of food waste, waste reduction through

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prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse, environmental sound management of chemicals,

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dissemination of information about company practices that support sustainable procurement

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and consumption. Irrespective of the product or the industry, an important tool in understanding

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responsible consumption and production is lifecycle thinking because it's not enough

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to develop solutions for environmentally friendly end-of-life management of products such as

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recycling products provide functions by using back and foreground systems foreground systems

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are those systems specific for the operation of the product along its life cycle in contrast

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background systems are generic they support the operation of the foreground system but are not

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specific to that product let's take electric cars as an example in the foreground system

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there's the entire life cycle of the electric vehicles from materials manufacturing used end

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of life in the background system there is energy electricity or other form used throughout the

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electric vehicle's life cycle although energy is critical for the operation of the electric vehicle

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foreground system it's also generic and used by other product systems such as tvs houses etc

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when we think about sustainability of electric vehicles we need to consider not only the

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foreground system but also how the foreground system interacts with the background system

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In the electric vehicle case, the foreground system can have a lower environmental footprint.

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However, if the supporting background system relies heavily on fossil fuels,

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then the environmental impact shifts from tailpipe emission to upstream energy supply.

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Similar examples can be found in other product systems,

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as simple as beverages and plastic bottles such as Coke and Pepsi.

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In this case, the main attention has always been on the beverage container

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and how they should be treated.

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In reality, the environmental impact hotspot is in the farming of the corn syrup

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used for making the beverage, which is in the background system.

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But a lifecycle perspective is not enough to achieve SDG 12

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because it ultimately assumes that consumption and production are independent,

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which is rarely the case.

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Remember the rebound effect?

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A strong increase in the coefficients of the products and technologies

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is clearly needed to ensure a sustainable level of environmental impact.

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But examples like LEDs, TVs and cars illustrate that a focus on eco-efficiency alone

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is not enough to ensure sustainable consumption and production in the future.

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There is a need to analyse the overall outcome in terms of environmental impact for a product or technology

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and relate it to the share of the operating space that this product or technology can claim.

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considering the size of its market to ensure that the improvements lead to the solutions that are

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not just more sustainable than what they replace but sustainable in absolute terms. Solutions then

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might be to develop products never to be discarded or to provide the service without having to own

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the product. The point is this, technology alone cannot achieve the United Nations Sustainable

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Development Goals without considering society and its ever-increasing affluence. As the rebound

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The design effect shows we not only need environmental-friendly production patterns,

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we also need to rethink consumption.

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So the bug stops with you. Think about your own consumption patterns.

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Try to gain a lifecycle perspective and ask yourself,

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what are the environmental impact hotspots in the products and services you consume?

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Are there better alternatives to these products?

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And most importantly, do you really need them?