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The International Resource Panel is a scientific panel of experts that aims to help nations use natural resources sustainably without compromising
economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the p ...
growth and human needs. It provides independent scientific assessments and expert advice on a variety of areas, including: * the volume of selected
raw material A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedst ...
reserves and how efficiently these resources are being used * the lifecycle-long environmental impacts of products and services created and consumed around the globe * options to meet human and economic needs with fewer or cleaner resources. The Secretariat of the IRP is hosted by the
United Nations Environment Programme The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on ...
(UN Environment) through its office in Paris, France.


Structure of the IRP

The Panel has more than 35 expert members drawn from a wide range of academic institutions and scientific disciplines, supported by a small Secretariat hosted by UNEP. It is co-chaired by Janez Potočnik, former European Commissioner for the Environment, and Izabella Teixeira, former Environment Minister of Brazil. Its Steering Committee is drawn from representatives of governments, the European Commission (EC) and UNEP. It guides the Panel's strategic direction, ensures policy relevance, and oversees budgets.


History of the IRP

While
climate change and biodiversity loss Climate change has adversely affected both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and is expected to further affect many ecosystems, including tundra, mangroves, coral reefs, caves etc. Increasing global temperature, more frequent occurrence of ext ...
have emerged as the world's most pressing environmental issues in recent decades, both issues are increasingly being seen as symptomatic of a broader problem of overuse of resources and lack of attention to the impacts on the environment they cause. The resources in question include materials (fossil fuels, biomass, construction minerals and metals), water, land and energy. The 2005
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is a major assessment of the human impact on the environment, called for by the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2000, launched in 2001 and published in 2005 with more than $14 million of gr ...
found that rapid rises in human demands for natural resources have caused substantial and irreversible
loss of biodiversity Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, d ...
Our current rate of consumption of resources such as fossil fuels, metals,
water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
and timber, is unsustainable and inequitable. WWF has pointed out that if we continue to consume resources at current levels, by 2050 we will need two planet's worth of natural materials to support the human race. The concept of sustainable use of resources was placed on the global governance agenda in 1992 at the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio Conference or the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to June 14, 1992. Earth Su ...
or ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. By 2005, several leading international environmental organisations were undertaking disparate work related to natural resources. The
OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
was investigating sustainable materials management, the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
put forward a new Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources used in Europe and UN Environment was conducting detailed studies into the way we use resources and their impacts.


A need for science

As various authorities began shaping policies to encourage
sustainable consumption Sustainable consumption (sometimes abbreviated to "SC") is the use of products and services in ways that minimize impacts on the environment in order for human needs to be met in the present but also for future generations. Sustainable consumption ...
and production, two issues emerged. One was that the field was lacking the kind of rigorous scientific assessments that underpinned research into other environmental disciplines, such as climate change ( Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), biodiversity (
Convention on Biological Diversity The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. The Convention has three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity (or biodiversity); the sustainable use of its ...
) and Ozone (
Montreal Protocol The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was agreed on 16 September 1987, and entered into force on ...
). The other was that as raw materials are sourced, processed, manufactured into products, traded and consumed in locations around the world, any scientific assessments would need to be global in scope. Different regions also tended to treat the topic differently, depending on the volume of resources they used, methods they used to process resources and whether they had access to domestic resources or depended on imports. The IRP was founded in 2007 as a way to address this void and support diverse efforts being made to shift the world towards sustainable consumption and production. By mid-2011, the IRP had released in-depth assessments on decoupling (the concept of separating economic growth from
environmental degradation Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; and pollution. It is define ...
),
biofuels Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA ...
,
metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typica ...
stocks, plus priority products and materials.UNEP Publications
The IRP has done a number of assessments, the topics of which include
greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), methane ...
mitigation technologies, efficiency of water use, trade, plus land and
soils Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former term ...
. By providing the best available scientific information on using resources efficiently, the IRP aims to help the world shift to a ‘
green economy A green economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more politi ...
’, where patterns of consumption and production are sustainable, all citizens have equitable access to resources and the enduring quality of the
global commons Global commons is a term typically used to describe international, supranational, and global resource domains in which common-pool resources are found. Global commons include the earth's shared natural resources, such as the high oceans, the atmosp ...
is assured.


The panel's mission

* Provide independent, coherent and authoritative scientific assessments of policy relevance on the sustainable use of natural resources and, in particular, their environmental impacts over the full life cycle. * Contribute to a better understanding of how to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation while enhancing human well-being.


What the IRP does

The IRP investigates the world's most critical resource issues with a view to supporting governments, industry, and society to improve
resource efficiency Resource efficiency is the maximising of the supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively, with minimum wasted (natural) resource expenses. It means using the ...
— a necessary condition to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).


References

{{Reflist


External links


www.resourcepanel.org

www.unep.org

Decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth
(2011)
Recycling rates of metals: A status report
(2011)
Assessing the environmental impacts of consumption and production: Priority products and materials
(2010)
Metal stocks in society: Scientific synthesis
(2010)
Towards sustainable production and use of resources: Assessing biofuels
(2009) Natural resource management United Nations Environment Programme