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The technical potential for reducing metal requirements through lightweight product design

Author

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  • Carruth, Mark A.
  • Allwood, Julian M.
  • Moynihan, Muiris C.

Abstract

Metal production consumes around 10% of all global energy, so is a significant driver of climate change and other concerns about sustainability. Demand for metal is rising and forecast to double by 2050 through a combination of growing total demand from developing countries, and ongoing replacement demand in developed economies. Metal production is already extremely efficient, so the major opportunities for emissions abatement in the sector are likely to arise from material efficiency – using less new metal to meet demand for services. Therefore this paper examines the opportunity to reduce requirements for steel and aluminium by lightweight design. A set of general principles for lightweight design are proposed by way of a simple analytical example, and are then applied to five case study products which cumulatively account for 30% of global steel product output. It is shown that exploiting lightweight design opportunities for these five products alone could reduce global steel requirements by 5%, and similar savings in aluminium products could reduce global aluminium requirements by 7%. If similar savings to those in the design case studies were possible in all steel and aluminium products, total material requirements could be reduced by 25–30%. However, many of these light-weighting measures are, at present, economically unattractive, and may take many years to implement.

Suggested Citation

  • Carruth, Mark A. & Allwood, Julian M. & Moynihan, Muiris C., 2011. "The technical potential for reducing metal requirements through lightweight product design," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 48-60.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:57:y:2011:i:c:p:48-60
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2011.09.018
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Cooper, Daniel R. & Skelton, Alexandra C.H. & Moynihan, Muiris C. & Allwood, Julian M., 2014. "Component level strategies for exploiting the lifespan of steel in products," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 24-34.
    2. Stede, Jan & Pauliuk, Stefan & Hardadi, Gilang & Neuhoff, Karsten, 2021. "Carbon pricing of basic materials: Incentives and risks for the value chain and consumers," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 189.
    3. Julia S. Nikulski & Michael Ritthoff & Nadja von Gries, 2021. "The Potential and Limitations of Critical Raw Material Recycling: The Case of LED Lamps," Resources, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-17, April.
    4. Pauliuk, Stefan & Kondo, Yasushi & Nakamura, Shinichiro & Nakajima, Kenichi, 2017. "Regional distribution and losses of end-of-life steel throughout multiple product life cycles—Insights from the global multiregional MaTrace model," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 84-93.
    5. Xiaoyang Zhong & Mingming Hu & Sebastiaan Deetman & Bernhard Steubing & Hai Xiang Lin & Glenn Aguilar Hernandez & Carina Harpprecht & Chunbo Zhang & Arnold Tukker & Paul Behrens, 2021. "Global greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial building materials and mitigation strategies to 2060," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Marlene Preiß, 2021. "Treiber und Hemmnisse betrieblicher Effizienzmaßnahmen – Vernetzung als Erfolgsfaktor [Drivers and barriers of operational efficiency measures—networking as a success factor]," NachhaltigkeitsManagementForum | Sustainability Management Forum, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 93-106, June.
    7. Yingying Lu & Heinz Schandl, 2021. "Do sectoral material efficiency improvements add up to greenhouse gas emissions reduction on an economy‐wide level?," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(2), pages 523-536, April.

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