The move to reduce the material content of human activity continues to gather momentum. The year 1995 could well go down in history as the starting point of revolution in consumption patterns and production systems. Man-made material flows (women, apparently, do not have a major responsibility for this issue) are now comparable – if not greater than – geophysical material movements. Last year, a new initiative of the Wuppertal Institute in Germany and a number of other institutions including Development Alternatives launched the Factor 10 Club in France (reported in our December, 1994). The Factor 10 Club advocates changes in technology, market behaviour and other economic systems to bring down material use in the industrialised countries by an order of magnitude 10. The Factor 10 Club fully recognises that such changes will not occur overnight, and will require long-term strategic approaches that will lead to the fundamental structural changes that are necessary in the economy to achieve the dematerialisation goal. For this reason, the Wuppertal Institute and other partners have also established the Factor 10 Club which has undertaken to demonstrate that a four times reduction of material use intensity is quite possible in many industries and economic sectors in the here and now. The recently published report of the Factor 4 initiatives has quickly become a best seller in Germany. With its longer term vision, the Factor 10 Club seeks to formulate both the general principles of a dematerialised society and resource efficient economic development processes and to identify specific examples of how and where it can be achieved. It is now known that some leading firms accomplish considerable increase of resource productivity without sacrificing end-use satisfaction, inter alia by re-designing their products, restructuring their production, and altering their purchasing, marketing, and maintenance strategies. By so doing, some companies not only increase the resource productivity, but gain considerable advantages over their competitors. Increasing the resource productivity of goods and services can be profitable by applying innovative strategies in areas such as design, production, marketing, and maintenance. New production schemes, lowering waste streams, saving energy, use of recycled materials, modular design, advanced self-control systems for processes and products, longevity and size of products, leasing rather than selling, decentralisation of maintenance services, and changes in buying and selling strategies are but a few possibilities that – can result in dematerialization. To be successful, systems approaches over the entire life cycle of products may be an important part of the strategy. In the developing countries too, such as India, there are corporate and enterprises who believe in the ideology of dematerialisation as a major goal for sustainability. Corporates and enterprises who have achieved tangible success and are interested in dissemination of their experience are invited to let the factor 4 Club have their cases. The Club will like to follow up by visits and interviews with the people concerned to enable proper documentation and presentation in the global forum. Indian enterprises may please send their cases to Development Alternatives, New Delhi who are networking with factor 10/4 Clubs in this respect. For more information on dematerialisation, Factor 10/4 clubs, we suggest that ‘Development Alternatives’ newsletter issues December 1994 (Vol. 4, No. 12) and December 1995 (Vol. 5, No. 12) be referred to. If you need copies of the articles, please write to Communication Unit, Development Alternatives
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