Factor Ten is a social and economic policy program developed by the Factor Ten institute with the stated goal of "provid ngpractical support for achieving significant advances in sustainable value creation, in particular through increases in resource productivity throughout the economy.

History

Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek, from the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, first proposed the Factor 10 and dematerialization concepts in the early 1990s. He concluded in his studies that 80% of the world's resources are distributed among

First World The concept of the First World was originally one of the " Three Worlds" formed by the global political landscape of the Cold War, as it grouped together those countries that were aligned with the Western Bloc of the United States. This groupin ...

nations, which contribute 20% of the global population, so those nations are promoting an unsustainable system of development. The goal of Factor 10 is to assure that nations do not exceed the planet's

carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an ecosystem is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as the ...

but leave sufficient resources for future generations.

Factor 4

Factor 10 evolved from the less dramatic Factor 4 was originally proposed by L. Hunter Lovins and Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute and Ernst von Weizsäcker, the founder of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment & Energy. Their book ''Factor 4'' explains how simple it is for nations to achieve Factor 4 results with existing technologies. The concept attempts to reduce resource and energy use by 75% by doubling output and halving input of production.

Goals

Factor 10 requires the creation of new technologies, policies, and manufacturing processes along with sociocultural change to create a

global economy The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans in the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumption, econ ...

that is sustainable for a long period of time. The long-term goal of Factor 10, many governments and firms aspiring toward short term relief have difficulty achieving the massive reductions proposed by factor 10. The lack of existing incentives and policies for a sufficient resource-efficient economy requires an adjustment of economic and fiscal framework.

Eco-efficiency Eco-efficiency refers to the delivery of goods and services to meet human needs and improve quality of life while progressively reducing their environmental impacts of goods and resource intensity during their life-cycle. Together with consistency ...

, environmental purchasing design for environment, policies and environmental taxes have already been used by business and governments implementing the Factor 10 theory. Factor 10 goes farther as a response to 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 Declaration of the United Nati ...

call for a tenfold reduction in resource consumption in industrialized countries as a necessary long-term target if adequate resources are to be released for the needs of the

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

. With the predicted rise in population and economic growth to maintain the level of

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...

we have today, we need to be able to produce the same output for 10% of the impact. Factor 10 concept is the direct way of using metric and various activities that can reduce the throughput of resources and energy in the given process. The essential question is by what factor certain flows can or should be reduced. It is a useful tool to monitor the performance of business in terms of dematerialization.Robert, K.H., Schmidt-Bleek, B., et al. (2002). "Strategic sustainable development, selection, design and synergies of applied tools." '' Journal of Cleaner Production''.

History

Factor 4

Goals

References

Further reading