Global socioeconomic material stocks rise 23-fold over the 20th century and require half of annual resource use.

ABSTRACT: Human-made material stocks accumulating in buildings, infrastructure, and machinery play a crucial but underappreciated role in shaping the use of material and energy resources. Building, maintaining, and in particular operating in-use stocks of materials require raw materials and energy. Material stocks create long-term path-dependencies because of their longevity. Fostering a transition toward environmentally sustainable patterns of resource use requires a more complete understanding of stock-flow relations. Here we show that about half of all materials extracted globally by humans each year are used to build up or renew in-use stocks of materials. Based on a dynamic stock-flow model, we analyze stocks, inflows, and outflows of all materials and their relation to economic growth, energy

SUBMITTER: Krausmann F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5338421 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature