Sustainable Products, 2nd Edition

Chapter 8 Energy and material strategy

In the context of reducing the sustainability-related impact of a product or an organisation, strategy refers to the reduction of materials, resources consumed, energy, other KPIs or the risks related to these KPIs. Measuring the amounts of materials, energy or emissions consumed, as described above, is a necessary prerequisite for implementing this strategy.

The idea is to

• use less material (raw material, water, etc.) and energy to achieve the same or more performance (less space, more function, higher utilisation, sharing) over a longer lifetime,

• to produce less weight,

• to allow reuse of components,

• allow and promote recycling and upcycling,

• allow improved yields in all processes,

• use less and ...