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Consuming the world's resources: Europe's role, Europe's responsibilities
Brussels, 15 September 2009 - Europe is using increasing quantities of
the world's natural resources, according to a new report [1] launched by
Friends of the Earth Europe at the 'World Resources Forum' in Davos,
Switzerland today [2]. The report also shows that Europe is more
dependant on imported resources than other global regions.
The extraction and use of natural resources such as food crops, fossil
fuels, minerals, agrofuels and timber has major environmental and social
impacts. Case studies in the report – including of oil extraction in
Nigeria and biofuel production in Indonesia - demonstrate some of these
impacts. Europe does not just import such materials directly, it also
imports them as part of finished products, for example a computer
imported from China will have large amounts of resources associated with
its production.
Dr Michael Warhurst, who leads Friends of the Earth Europe's Resources
and Consumption campaign, said: "Europe is using an ever-increasing amount of the world's resources, and
our society is already very dependant on imports of materials – yet we
have no targets to reduce this resource use, and new policies are not
assessed for their potential to increase our resource efficiency.
"Friends of the Earth Europe is calling on the EU to take the first
steps to tackle this issue through ensuring that our resource use is
measured, and by adopting new policies to increase our resource
efficiency, such as higher recycling targets. The EU must also start to
devise long term targets and strategies in order to radically reduce our
resource use."
Friends of the Earth Europe and Sustainable Europe Research Institute
(SERI) have analysed possible methods of measuring Europe's resource
use, and are proposing that four key aspects be covered: material use
(the focus of this report), land use, water use and greenhouse gas
emissions [3]. Each of these analyses must properly account for the
impacts of Europe's consumption on the rest of the world, by
incorporating the 'rucksack' of the resources used to make products
which are imported into Europe.
Dr Warhurst added: "In order to continue to thrive on this planet, our societies will need
to become less resource dependent, so that we are able to protect our
natural resource base and the fragile eco-systems on our planet.
"Europe is using more than its fair share of resources, and reducing our
consumption will also free more resources to increase the quality of
life in the developing world. In addition, a more resource-efficient
economy will be a competitive advantage for Europe as resource
availability becomes more constrained in the future."
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For more information please contact:
Dr A. Michael Warhurst, Waste and Resources Campaign, Friends of the Earth Europe, +44 20 7490 1555
Email: michael.warhurst@foe.co.uk
Francesca Gater, Communications Officer, Friends of the Earth Europe, +32 2 893 1010
Email: francesca.gater@foeeurope.org
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Notes for editors
[1] 'Over consumption? Our use of the world's natural resources' has
been written by Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI - www.seri.at) in Vienna and GLOBAL 2000 (Friends of the Earth Austria),
in collaboration with Friends of the Earth England Wales and Northern
Ireland (FOE EWNI).
The report (including a one page executive summary) is available online here.
[2] www.worldresourcesforum.org
[3] 'How to measure Europe’s resource use. An analysis for Friends of
the Earth Europe', SERI (for Friends of the Earth Europe), available here.
Friends of the Earth Europe campaigns for sustainable and fair societies and for the protection of the environment,
unites more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups
and is part of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International.
