Eco NW - Applications
Where and how to use the Eco-region NW
Sustainable consumption & production
The Eco-Region NW shows the challenge for the Northwest in moving towards 'real' sustainable development.
We take the measures of this as CO2 emissions, material flow and eco-footprint, as defined by the data from REAP. We take the target as the 4-fold increase in resource efficiency, as defined by the F-4 scenario.
Most calculations up to now have focused on the production side - so that if we close our steel mills and import the steel from Taiwan, this shows as a bonus. The Eco-region NW focuses on the consumption side - showing that the real issue is the footprint of the whole usage of steel, rather than where the factory is located.
This resource consumption agenda leaves aside, for the moment, the many other dimensions of sustainability - social, cultural, economic and so on. Even so this material challenge raises huge questions on who is responsible, how it can be achieved, what are the next actions required, and how much are the costs and benefits to each party involved.
The 'road map' chart shows the prospects for taking this forward over the next couple of decades - at the national level, regional level and industrial sector level. Somewhere in the middle are the enablers, catalysts and toolkits, of which the Eco-region NW is one demonstration.
