Natural Resources

The systems that produce products and services that we use consume energy and materials, some renewable like water, wind power and wood, and some non-renewable like iron, aluminium and oil (although iron and aluminium can be recycled).

Renewable materials must be managed wisely for sustainable use. The supply of non-renewable materials varies from material to material. Supplies of some materials appear as if they will run out within the next decade, while supplies of other materials can appear to be sufficient for hundreds of years to come.

A natural resource indicator is derived by dividing energy and materials into renewable and non-renewable categories. We have not yet come up with a way to measure the sustainability of renewable materials or crops, such as wheat, coffee or palm oil. For non-renewable materials, the estimates for future supplies are based on how much economically recoverable supply appears to exist at the present time. Then, different materials are compared on the basis of the implied scarcity.

Interpreting the natural resource indicator should be done cautiously. Estimating the sustainability of forests in Sweden, Russia, the U.S., Brazil and other countries is difficult at best. Comparing the estimates, given the many different species and conditions, only adds uncertainty to the estimate. Estimates of future supplies are also difficult.

Supply has to be predicted, and the various factors include the economics and technology of extraction, exploration for supplies, and the price of a material, which as it rises, makes additional supplies economically viable.

Comparison has to be made of very different materials (iron, diamonds, tungsten, oil and so on), which underlies interpreting a natural resources indicator.

Factors such as these call for caution in using a single score without further consideration of the specifics and details of the situation. This results in a total emissions load, and not an understanding of local conditions that actually produce ozone. Further, general conditions are used rather than local conditions, which would typically vary from Stockholm to Barcelona to Munich on a given day.