Material demand reduction

世界上三分之一的能源用于工业生产产品——建筑、基础设施、车辆、资本设备和维持我们生活方式的家庭用品。大部分的能源是在生产的早期阶段，将原材料，如铁矿石或树木，转化为钢板或卷纸等库存材料，因为这些材料价格便宜，但消耗大量的能源，所以它们的生产效率很高。因此，我们创造现代生活方式的关键材料——尤其是钢铁、水泥、塑料、纸张和铝——是工业能源的主要“载体”，如果我们想大幅减少工业能源的使用，我们需要减少对这些材料的需求。在英国，我们最近的历史导致我们关闭了大部分生产这些材料的能力，尽管这导致了英国领土上的排放减少，但实际上我们对材料的消费在增长，世界对能源的使用和温室气体的排放也在增加，因为我们的需求是通过进口来满足的。因此，该项目旨在显著减少能源和能源密集型材料在工业中的使用，以满足英国的物理需求。要做到这一点，我们需要了解英国工业的整个材料和能源系统的运作和性能；我们需要更好地理解物理变化的选择如何与企业客户和个人购买者的偏好相互作用；我们需要寻找机会在产品、流程和商业模式上进行创新，在满足相同需求的同时减少材料的使用；我们需要确定政策和商业触发因素，在支持英国繁荣的同时带来重大变化。研究人员已经开展了广泛的工作，旨在证明和评估减少材料需求的技术机会，与行业和政府合作伙伴密切合作：WellMet2050项目由EPSRC领导奖学金资助，为承认材料效率是一种节能减排战略打开了大门，并建立了几种减少总材料需求的战略。从这个项目中产生的《可持续材料：睁大眼睛》一书阐述了这些策略，并被广泛阅读：第一年就有2万人阅读了这本书的免费在线版本，第二版印刷版将于2015年发行。这个新项目旨在以此为基础，通过框架理解和部门案例研究并行方案，努力实现减少材料需求。该提案有大约500万英镑的承诺负债，包括现金承诺，以支持大约20名博士生，主要是将工作与财团合作伙伴的具体利益联系起来。这些学生中大约有一半现在已经开始工作，他们的工作在提案中描述的工作计划的背景下进行。该项目也得到了多个政府部门和其他利益重叠的组织的大力支持。沟通是项目活动的核心部分，以确保以最有用的形式与所有相关干系人尽可能广泛地分享正在进行和已完成的工作。通讯机制包括不断发展一个有机网站、出版精心设计的招股说明书和报告、为特定用户制作短片、演讲、研讨会、国际访问学者方案和两个只接受邀请的为期两天的讲习班。

One third of the world's energy is used in industry to make products - the buildings, infrastructure, vehicles, capital equipment and household goods that sustain our lifestyles. Most of this energy is needed in the early stages of production to convert raw materials, such as iron ore or trees, into stock materials like steel plates or reels of paper and because these materials are sold cheaply, but use a lot of energy, they are already made extremely efficiently. Therefore, the key materials with which we create modern lifestyles - steel, cement, plastic, paper and aluminium in particular - are the main 'carriers' of industrial energy, and if we want to make a big reduction in industrial energy use, we need to reduce our demand for these materials. In the UK, our recent history has led to closure of much of our capacity to make these materials, and although this has led to reductions in emissions occurring on UK territory, in reality our consumption of materials has grown, and the world's use of energy and emission of greenhouse gases has risen as our needs are met through imports.This project therefore aims to enable delivery of significant reductions in the use of both energy and energy-intensive materials in the Industries that supply the UK's physical needs. To achieve this, we need to understand the operation and performance of the whole material and energy system of UK industry; we need to understand better how options for physical change interact with the preferences of corporate clients and individual purchasers; we need to look for opportunities to innovate in products, processes and business models to use less material while serving the same need; and we need to identify the policy, business triggers that would lead to significant change while supporting UK prosperity.The investigators have already developed broad-ranging work aiming to justify and evaluate the technical opportunity for material demand reduction, in close collaboration with industry and government partners: the WellMet2050 project, funded as an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship, opened the door to recognising Material Efficiency as a strategy for saving energy and reducing emissions, and established several strategies for reducing total material demand. The book "Sustainable Materials: with both eyes open" arising form this project set out these strategies, and has been widely picked up: 20,000 individuals looked at the free online version of the book in its first year, and a second edition of the print version is being released in 2015. This new project aims to build on this foundation and work towards implementation of material demand reduction through a parallel programme of framing understanding and sector case-studies.The proposal has around £5m of committed gearing, including cash commitments to support around 20 PhD students mainly to connect the work to the specific interests of consortium partners. About half of these students have now started, and their work is set into context within the work programme described in the proposal. The project is also strongly supported by several government departments and a wide network of other organisations whose interests overlap. Communication is a core part of the activity of the project, to ensure that on-going and completed work is shared as widely as possible, in the most useful form with all relevant stakeholders. Communication mechanisms include on-going development of an organic website, publication of well-designed prospectuses and reports, development of short films for specific users, speeches, seminars, an International Visiting Fellows programme, and two invite only two-day workshops.