A trick question! Not everything can be 'renewable' (wind, tide, sun, hemp and sheep growth?) and doesn't have to be. Many or most of humans' tools and things, from flints and clay on, are non-renewable. What they can be is 'sustainable' in the original sense - you can start doing it and keep on doing it forever without significant problem.

Even quantity use of rare earths, say, can be sustainable. Its mining could, with will, be non-damaging, to environment, wildlife or happy workers. Then, when sufficient is 'in stock' in the world, mining could cease and henceforth every last scrap captured and upcycled (using lots of renewable energy) back to virgin feedstock. That's sustainable.

From Oxford Languages :

Renewable - '(of a natural resource or source of energy) not depleted when used. "a shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy".'

Sheep's wool? Straw? Wood-fibre/Cork? (from well managed forests)

(Holds manufacturers' statement up his sleeve pending more 'offers'). djh, I was hoping someone would say straw!

djh said: ''I'm even less sure that mining any minerals can ever be either renewable or sustainable.''

You and me both!

I wonder Nick, whether this is a manufacturer that is confusing renewable with recyclable, i.e EPS?

Posted By: fostertom

Posted By: djhI'm even less sure that mining any minerals can ever be either renewable or sustainable

Obviously not renewable, but sustainable? How purist can we get - fruitarian? Sure, mining is 'rape of the earth' but so is quarrying building stone, or clay for bricks and pots, ploughing, or even poking a planting hole in a no-dig regime. Even hunter-gatherers did it, unlike primate ancestors - it seems very longtime hard-wired, what humans do (unlike the notion that mean self-interest is 'human nature' - anthropology disproves that).

What's sure is that quarrying doesn't have to be the wilful land-and-life desecration and human exploitation that prevails today, not by a long chalk. 'Enough' - I take the point - but 'enough' is vastly different when accompanied by 100% recovery rather than dumping into the biosphere.

As I said, the operative word is 'sufficient' and the validity of that entirely depends on some method of population control. I'm not suggesting quarrying stone, and wouldn't support it. Mining clay worries me less but it's usually fired into pottery and that does worry me in the quantity bricks are made. Ploughing and planting things isn't 'mining'; i.e. extracting resources from the earth (or the sea or ...)

I agree that methods of mining can be greatly improved (witness the spurt of electric mining machinery, some powered by recovery of braking energy) and recycling can help, and needs to, but ultimately as long as there is an increasing population, there is a greater need for resources.

And to the extent that we all use renewable resources rather than those derived from mined minerals that can only help.

Ploughing not only destroys the soil's structure but also releases carbon into the atmosphere. So maybe need to strike that one.

Fostertom,

to me the current situation is driven by two main things. The fact that in my lifetime the world population has more than doubled and this simple fact has a massive effect on natural resources. Secondly the current economic model followed most governments of perpetual growth which is not only illogical but unsustainable. The latter might be challenged in the near future but the population problem I fear is too hot a topic for most to grasp.

You hear that a lot, but it's an epic misunderstanding.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing_of_Europe

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/15/world-population-in-2100-could-be-2-billion-below-un-forecasts-study-suggests

Native population is falling in many wealthy western countries, rich people have fewer children, so we rely on migration to sustain the working population. The solution to world population growth is to increase the prosperity of the non-Western countries so everyone has fewer, older, but richer people, and that's already happening. The time of "peak people" is coming soon, in a good way.

That doesn't fit with the calls we hear for worldwide economic recessions (cessation of growth). Fortunately, wealth growth in Western economics has long since decoupled from energy or emissions growth, and there's no reason why wealth growth needs to be coupled to consumption of other resources anywhere else. Consider how much the UK economy has grown since 1990 and how much emissions have fallen since then, even including imports. Most of the growth has come from producing cleverer things, rather than more resource-intensive things.

For example, I can afford a much nicer bike than my Dad had at my age, because of economic growth. My bike is partly made from recycled aluminium rather than primary steel, so has used fewer primary resources to build, and will last for longer. Much of the extra value comes from the improvements in the design (ergonomics, gearing, brakes, suspension) none of which required any more primary resources, in fact the bike is lighter (fewer materials). I hope my kids will be wealthier than me and so afford carbon fibre bikes with recycled battery drive.

Repeated across the economy and a declining population, this is how economic growth is not the problem that many wealthy misinformed people suggest! There's been a fear of it since long before the Luddites, something deep within us I guess.

OK, this is the statement that sparked this:

"But from a sustainability perspective, ROCKWOOL has an even bigger story to tell. Our main raw material is stone, specifically a blend of naturally occurring volcanic diabase rock. This is a plentiful and renewable resource, which the Earth is constantly making more of. Our stone wool insulation is also endlessly recyclable, so no waste needs to be created either." It appears on https://www.rockwool.com/group/about-us/our-thinking/sustainability-and-circularity/non-specific-insulation/

I had seen the 'R(enewable)' word used in a consultant's write-up of a London Borough's retrofit exemplar, and thought 'hmmmm'. So I looked for the source and found this (above). I had been on the point of writing to the report's authors to suggest that they were labouring under a misapprehension, and then I saw the source.

I reserve my opinion but cannot help but feel (spoiler alert) that I would not be wholly in agreement with this definition of 'renewable'. I am not an earth scientist, but where does the base material come from to be 'constantly making more' volcanic rock? Surely there's an element of ?non-renewable? 'source material somewhere?

WillieinAberdeen,

whilst I would agree with most of your first paragraph I do think the rest is very assumptive and open to question. Whilst emissions in the UK have gone down in the last 50 years energy consumption most definitely has not. In addition once you take into account the shifting of emissions from manufacturing of goods in the UK to those goods being made in other countries such as China, etc. and you include those emissions into the amount we in the UK cause to be generated then I doubt emissions have sunk by as much as we may think. The tendency of western countries like the UK to shift the problems we cause to third parties whilst trying to claim we are making progress is sad. It is about time we owned up to our deeds and took responsibility.

Lighter materials does not necessarily mean fewer materials. Recycling is not always more environmentally friendly and many modern materials used in those 'clever gadgets' are mined at high cost and are not viable to recycle.

As for economic growth. Yes, that does allow poor populations to increase their wealth but as you pointed out we are not only already a rich country (though poorly distributed) but we also have a declining indigenous population. We therefore could increase individual wealth whilst maintaining the same level of economy. Instead we strip other countries of valuable workforce, whilst our companies syphon off money which could be staying in poorer countries to help improve standards of living there.

Whilst I am not claiming it is as bleak as my post might suggest it certainly is not all roses might be taken from yours. As a final point, as the concept of perpetual economic growth is the accept norm today then it is a luddite point of view

true Jonti.

"Smart" build and "Smart" recycle, is rarely as smart as some would have us believe. The first thing that often happens is demand increases, "One step forward, two steps back " , and there's usually a mucky side to the so called clean technology. Much of it seems to be an excuse to keep the global Wirtschaftswunder rolling.

Posted By: Nick ParsonsThis is a plentiful and renewable resource, which the Earth is constantly making more of

A fringe factor in the debate when Peak Oil was all the rage, was the belief which the Russian oil industry apparently takes as self-evident, that oil is an exudate that the planet constantly 'makes', or at least brings to the near-surface. Even in the American camp, I saw a report, back then, of worked-out oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico having mysteriously partly re-filled, on re-inspection.

Thanks for the info WiA.

I think we are quite similar in thoughts on this.

What would concern me about the report is if car parts are all imported from outside the UK to a factory, the pieces put together and then exported for sales as far as the UK is concerned it is carbon neutral. That means that as long as the UK finds a third country to take all the waste it will not recycle then all that is subtracted from the emissions?

I don't think the climate cares who or where the emissions are made. If the UK is responsible for the creation of emissions whether that be through manufacturing or importing due to inland demand then the UK should count those emissions. I would also suggest that as it is part of the energy chain the emissions created by the housing and lifestyle of factory workers be included in the count of imported goods. Yes, this does lead to double counting but it stops the off loading of emissions which is clearly happening.

Posted By: WillInAberdeen on decoupling - Most of the growth has come from producing cleverer things, rather than more resource-intensive things.

economic growth is not the problem

I don't think this is correct. Despite some areas of economics suggesting there's been a decoupling of growth/resources, the figures still show a significant increase in resource use linked to growth, particularly when you look at the global picture, partly because there is no economic activity without the use of resources.

In the SDG12 paper by the One Planet Network on this very issue it states:

"The Cost of Inaction

In the absence of urgent and concerted action and rapid growth, the use of natural resources will
continue to grow unsustainably. According to the International Resource Panel’s (IRP) Global Resource
Outlook, under current ‘business as usual’ trends, GPD will continue to grow at an average rate of 2.2%
per year to reach 216 trillion USD by 2060. This would require a 110% increase in global resource
extraction (190 billion tonnes), and an increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 43% (70GT CO2e)."

Part of the problem is that many mainstream economists hold dear to this ideology re the essential nature of growth and this in turn hinders a review of the underlying economic thinking which actually radically needs to change for the benefit of the environment . There are other important aspects to this which are social rather than technical and that is the way in which mainstream economic language affects the behaviour of people, which again has significant negative impact on the environment.

But I suppose you could say the problem is resource use rather than growth..

None of this is to say that it isn't possible with some serious effort. Refering again to the One Planet Network paper on decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation, it suggests that construction would be an ideal place to start given that as a sector its share of total global material footprint is about 50%.

https://www.oneplanetnetwork.org/sites/default/files/one_planet_network_decoupling_economic_growth_from_environmental_degradation.pdf

Simon, thanks for the link, but unfortunately a common fallacy is stated as fact in the first paragraph. The overwhelming source of economic growth in modern economies comes not from consuming more natural resources. But from using more/better human resources (labour, skills, knowledge, intellect) and capital resources (infrastructure, organisations, social structures).

We can become a wealthier society by increasing our human resources (eg by research and education) or capital resources (eg fibre broadband or social networks or healthcare services) without needing to deplete more natural resources.

As an example, as we organised our energy market better (a capital resource) and gained experience (a human resource), we started to install more and bigger wind turbines, their price fell, so we can consume more/cheaper energy, become better off and simultaneously deplete our natural resources less (less fossil fuel use, air pollution, CO2, acid rain, opencast mining, etc).

That's not to say there aren't many/obvious examples of overconsumption of natural resources that we must urgently tackle, otherwise we wouldn't be on GBF. But we will be able to tackle them using better human and social resources and still become better off than we were, which is fundamentally all that economic growth is.