Resource efficiency from a life cycle and value chain perspective requires reducing the total environmental impact of the production and consumption of goods and services, from raw material extraction to final use and disposal. Economic growth and social development cannot be sustained with our current consumption and production patterns. Globally, we are extracting more resources to produce goods
and services than our planet can replenish, while a large share of an increasingly urban world population is still struggling to meet basic needs (UNEP, 2010c).
Resource efficiency aims at ensuring that natural resources are produced, processed and consumed in a more environmentally sustainable manner, with specific emphasis on creating a green economy that uses cleaner investments and green jobs to address poverty alleviation (UNEP, 2011b). RECP strategies increase the productive use of natural resources, minimise generation of waste and emissions, and foster safe and responsible production. RECP also provides enterprises with a comprehensive strategy to improve the overall environmental performance and resource utilisation efficiency, which leads to economic, reputational, and regulatory benefits. Given the positive evolution in environmental regulations and norms in recent years by various stakeholders, elements of UNEP’s RECP practices exist in many countries under concepts such as eco-efficiency, waste minimisation, pollution prevention, and green productivity.
Figure 1 below shows what RECP specifically works towards advancing:
Figure 1:UNEP – Resource Efficiency for Business (Source: UNEP, 2015)
2.2.2 Cleaner Production and Economic Growth
Economic growth and sustainable development from a global perspective is a very challenging task for governments. Addressing concerns such as unemployment, inequality and poverty has been challenging for South Africa, and this is further exacerbated by the problem of unsustainable environmental practices.
Economic growth is strongly linked to our pensions, government finances, economic and monetary structures, climate and energy policy, innovation, and research and development. In addition there are expectations of the smart economy (people thinking and working smarter, generating new ideas and getting more for less right across the economy), the health service (cost and efficiency in service), a green new deal (a package of policy proposals that aims to address global warming), globalisation, the rise of China, and our own futures, as well as those of our children (Korowicz et al., 2010). Through 200 years of globalising economic growth, we have come to embody its processes in how we live and understand the world.
The smart economy iterates what resource efficiency and cleaner production initiatives aim at elevating, and the principles are aligned to achieve this thinking.
Following the recession or global crisis in 2008–2009, there is much uncertainty around economic growth for developed as well as developing and emerging economies. Industry’s production systems are unsustainable, and only if they produce more with less (i.e. decouple), will they become more sustainable (UNIDO, 2010). Enterprises can have negative impacts on their local environments, and in response to this there has been a rapid growth in legislation aimed at getting industry to “clean up its act”. The new environmental services sector has through this expanded rapidly in the developed countries.
Climate change is an irrevocable fact of life with which we will have to live (Adger et al., 2003), and will most certainly influence future development strategies, especially in the developing world (Bates et al., 2008). In terms of the effects of climate change, the future is becoming increasingly clear (Podesta & Ogden, 2007). The expected greenhouse gas emissions scenario developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) portrays a world in which people and nations will be threatened by massive food and water shortages, devastating natural disasters, and deadly disease outbreaks (IPCC, 2007).
The important question is how do we balance the consequences of climate change with current economic development strategies? Do we continue exploiting the limited resources available for financial gain, or do we entrench a culture that will reduce the threat to future generations through more sustainable practices that address environmental degradation and pollution adequately? What strategies are available to address the needs of society, and how effectively can these contribute to economic growth?
2.2.3 Cleaner Production Options and Benefits
Cleaner production is a preventative strategy to minimise the impact of production and products on the environment. The principal actors of cleaner production are the companies which control the production processes, and they are influenced strongly by their customers such as private, public or other companies, and politics such as laws, regulation and taxes (Fresner, 1998).
Greater resource efficiency and resource recovery, enabled through smart public policy, can for instance reduce waste flows associated with rising living standards.
The scope for recovering waste is large, as currently only 25% of all the waste is recovered or recycled, while the world market for waste, from collection to recycling, is worth an estimated US$ 410 billion a year (UNEP, 2011b).
The interdisciplinary cleaner production approach encompasses a range of options can be used (Fresner, 1998):
Good housekeeping with materials and energy.
Training of employees, better logistics, improvement in data availability and communication between departments.
Substitution of raw and auxiliary materials with less harmful ones that can be used more efficiently or can be recycled internally or externally.
Modifications of products to eliminate production steps with large environmental impacts.
Process modifications to minimise waste and emissions.
Internal recycling.
Introduction of waste into external recycling networks.
Cleaner production is a philosophy that encompasses an understanding that production must be clean, from “cradle to cradle” (fully and safely recyclable), beginning with the very materials that were used in the first place (Lakhani, 2006).
This means that if we do not begin with a sustainable product that uses a sustainable process, based on sustainable materials and sustainable water and energy use, we will never genuinely reach sustainable development.
This chapter places emphasis on various aspects such as the importance of the green economy and what it aims to achieve in practicality. It also outlines in detail the various environmental mechanisms and tools that are broadly used to assist in transition to this envisaged green economy within a South Africa context.
There is abundant evidence that the global economy still has untapped opportunities to produce wealth using less material and energy resources (UNEP, 2010d).
Greening the manufacturing sector implies extending the useful life of manufactured goods by means of greater emphasis on redesign, remanufacturing and recycling, which constitute the core of closed-loop manufacturing.
RECP as shown in Figure 2 below has been applied in many countries, sometimes under different, but related approaches, and promoting RECP as a comprehensive environmental strategy requires the following:
Figure 2: UNEP – Resource Efficiency for Business (Source: UNEP, 2015)
2.2.4 Implications for South Africa
South Africa has set its short-, medium- and long-term vision for contribution towards an environmentally sustainable, climate-change resilient, low-carbon economy and a just society. The vision is outlined in the Cabinet-endorsed National Strategy for Sustainable Development and Action Plan (2014), New Growth Path (2020) and National Development Plan (2030). This is supported by various sector policies and strategies including the Integrated Resource Plan, Industrial Policy Action Plan, Environment Sector Green Economy Implementation Plan, National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, and the National Climate Change Response White Paper (UNEP, 2013). Therefore based on the Cabinet-endorsed vision for South Africa, a simple but yet very strategic implementation plan is required to be put in place to
ensure that action is taken to address the sustainability challenges of the nation. This will be outlined through steps as discussed in the green economy in the next section.