Material stocks and their role in reducing resource use in the United States of America

Talk by Jan Streeck: Socio-economic material stocks and their role in reducing resource use in the United States of America Socio-economic material stocks of infrastructure, buildings and machinery are the basis of production and consumption and an important determinant of current and future resource use. One of the largest consumers of materials worldwide are the United States of America (USA) with a substantial influence on global trends. To assess the role of stocks for long-term resource use in this affluent industrialized economy, we here present results of a study on economy-wide resource use, accumulation of material stocks and resulting end-of-life outflows from 1870 to 2017. Based on the dynamics of stocks and resulting end-of-life (EoL) outflows from stocks, we investigate waste management and circularity considerations and present two prospective scenarios until 2100 to highlight the long-term effect of material stock dynamics for future resource use. The 14th Biennial International Conference on EcoBalance conference is hosted by the Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan. The theme of the conference is “Materializing Sustainability Visions: Fostering Partnerships with Life Cycle Thinking” and due to COVID-19 restrictions, it happens as a hybrid-online conference. https://www.ecobalanceconference.org/.