Eco efficiency, a path towards integrated resource management

摘要

There is an increasing awareness that our economic growth comes at environmental costs that exceeds the global means. Depleting natural resources, rising costs, risks and impacts of resource extraction in increasingly difficult conditions, and environmental and climate change impacts from production and consumption call for a more sustainable use of environment and resources. Eco-efficiency responds to this call by optimizing value while minimizing resource use and environmental impacts, or in other words to do more with less. Eco-efficiency can be seen as a means for decoupling economic development (the goods) from environmental impact and waste generation (the bads), which is central in EU environmental and waste policy. It is thus a concept that could support further development and refinement of solid waste management systems in the EU in line with EU policies and with full consideration to the resource value in waste.