(General session) Resource based economy and social system / Mining technologies［Thu. Sep 14, 2023 AM Room-2］

[3201-06-02] A change of the viewpoint on Resource Efficiency in Circular Economy

○Kohmei HALADA¹ (1. Sustainability Design Institute)

Chairperson: Hirou Kusuda(Kyoto University)

Keywords:resource efficiency, depletion, dissipation, circular economy

Discussion points on resources and circulation are beginning to change, particularly in Europe, where the circular economy is being advanced. The preciousness of resources, previously discussed as 'exhaustible', is now recognised as an issue of economic avarability rather than physical depletion. There is also an emerging view that the impact of human economic action on resources is not in mining but in 'dissipating' value. In terms of resource-efficient cycles, not only the 'closed' cycle of increasing the rate of circulation, but also the 'narrow' cycle of using fewer resources in time, and the 'slow' cycle of continuing to use resources for a longer period of time, are being emphasised alongside each other. These are largely due to the fact that resources have shifted from the era of mass supply to the era of enclosure.