KEY ELEMENTS FOR ECONOMY-WIDE SUSTAINABLE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

It is getting tighter on our globe. A growing world population is getting richer and demands more and more products which require natural resources and create various environmental impacts from mining to final waste disposal. The competition on rarer metals let some countries prohibit exports containing such raw materials. The rising demand for food and non-food biomass, such as feed-stocks for biofuels, and harvests fluctuating severely, due to more frequent weather extremes, triggered land grabbing in foreign countries, particularly in developing regions. Without mechanisms moderating resource consumption, abiotic and biotic resources will be depleted, mining and refining will devastate and pollute more and more places in remote areas, agriculture will expand into the remaining natural forests, and conflicts about land use and clean water will increase.