Abstract

Here we present a high-resolution approach for tracking material flows and energy use of products throughout their life cycles, focusing on passenger vehicles and residential buildings. We estimate future changes in material flows and operational energy use due to increased yields, light-weight designs, material substitution, increased service efficiency, extended service life, and increased reuse and recycling.

Main Text

  • comprised of 20 countries/regions
  • six major climate-relevant materials (aluminium, cement, copper, plastics, steel, wood) for the period 2016 - 2060.
  • material efficiency strategies: supply-side measures (higher yields in fabrication and scrap recovery, reuse of fabrication scrap, product light-weighting through better design or material substitution) and demand-side measures (reuse of
    products and product lifetime extension, and sufficiency-related measures including more efficient use of cars via car-sharing and ride-sharing, and more efficient use of dwelling space resulting in less floor space per person).
  • Three socioeconomic scenarios: a low energy demand (LED) scenario 28 and two of the shared socioeconomic pathways, SSP1 and SSP2 (each of them has a with or without 2°C scenario).
  • An expert consensus approach was used to estimate the future service level (passenger-km delivered by cars, residential floor area utilised).

Results