Factor Four: Doubling Wealth - Halving Resource Use : the New Report to the Club of Rome

Front Cover

Since the industrial revolution, progress has meant an increase in labour productivity. Factor Four describes a new form of progress, resource productivity, a form which meets the overriding imperative for the future (sustainability). It shows how at least four times as much wealth can be extracted from the resources we use. As the authors put it, the book is about doing more with less, but this is not the same as doing less, doing worse or doing without.

In 1972, the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth, which sent shock waves around the world by arguing that we were rapidly running out of essential resources. This Report to the Club of Rome offers a solution. It lies in using resources more efficiently, in ways which can already be achieved, not at a cost, but at a profit. The book contains a wealth of examples of revolutionizing productivity, in the use of energy; from hypercars to low-energy beef; materials, from sub-surface drip irrigation to electronic books, transport, video conferencing to CyberTran, and demonstrating how much more could be generated from much less today.

It explains how markets can be organized and taxes re-based to eliminate perverse incentives and reward efficiency, so wealth can grow while consumption does not. The benefits are enormous: profits will increase, pollution and waste will decrease and the quality of life will improve. Moreover, the benefits will be shared: progress will no longer depend on making ever fewer people more productive. Instead, more people and fewer resources can be employed. While for many developing countries the efficiency revolution may offer the only realistic chance of prosperity within a reasonable time span. The practical promise held out in this book is huge, but the authors show how it is up to each of us, as well as to businesses and governments, to make it happen.

From inside the book

Contents

FIFTY EXAMPLES OF QUADRUPLING RESOURCE PRODUCTIVITY
3
The Rocky Mountain Institute Headquarters
10
The Darmstadt Passivhaus
19
Renovating Masonry RowHouses
25
Lighting
32
Office Equipment
41
Renewables in a Cold Climate
48
The Frontiers of AirConditioning
58
REWARD WHAT WE WANT NOT THE OPPOSITE
177
29
179
Responsibility Requires Responsiveness to Feedback
183
Making Prices Tell the Truth
189
ECOLOGICAL TAX REFORM
198
Much Scope for International Harmonisation
206
THE CHALLENGE FROM
213
The Greenhouse Effect and the Climate Convention
222

Quadrupling Energy Productivity in Five Small Steps
64
Durable Office Furniture
70
Electronic Books and Catalogues
76
Water Efficiency in Manufacturing
82
Cotton Production with Less Water
88
Perennial Polyculture
94
Efficiency
101
WideSpan HeavyDuty Wood Construction
108
24
110
Strawberry Yoghurt
117
The Soft Options for Rapid Trains
123
CarFree Mobility
130
Getting the Village Feeling in the City
132
IF MARKETS CREATE THE PROBLEM
143
Market Theory versus Practice
150
Utility Regulatory Reform
158
Making Negawatt Markets And Beyond
164
Species Extinction and the Biodiversity Convention
230
AVALANCHES OF MATTER THE FORGOTTEN AGENDA
237
33
241
The Factor Ten Club
244
Steering From the Wrong End
246
Ecological Audits Costly but Possibly Enlightening
254
36
258
Population Dynamics
261
A BRIGHTER CIVILISATION
271
TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
278
46
279
A Role for Factor Four in Trade and the Environment
286
Insatiable Consumption May Outpace the Efficiency
292
References
300
Index
308
48
311
Copyright

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