Page 98 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 2

Industrial Decarbonization:
The Role Of Material Efficiency Strategies

energy largely from fossil fuels, (ii) and there are processed emissions caused
by chemical processes happening in the production stage, which, therefore,
makes industry-based mitigation harder (Baumert et al, 2005; Allwood et al,
2010; ME, 2019; Davis et al, 2018; Bataille et al, 2018; Bataille, 2020; IEA, 2020b;
Feldmann and Kennedy, 2021; Fransen et al, 2021).
The factors that make the industrial sector more emission-intensive are
also quite important in terms of identifying the options for industrial sector
emission mitigation. In this sense, the recent academic studies (Alwood et al.,
2011; Aidt et al, 2017; Bataille, 2020; Alataş et al, 2021a; Karakaya et al, 2021)
and the reports issued by international institutions (ME, 2019; IEA, 2020b;
International Resource Panel [IRP], 2020; IEA, 2021b-2021c) emphasize the
efficient use of resources, especially materials to reach the long term net-zero
emission goals in industry.
Material efficiency basically refers to the use of less material to have the
same level of output. As these materials are emission-intensive products
used by the industrial sector, such as cement, metals, plastics, and wood, it is
thought that material efficiency strategies will play a critical role in mitigating
the emissions in this sector (IPCC, 2022b). According to the IRP report (2020),
the demand for materials has dramatically increased in recent years. For
instance, as of 2019, the amount of materials domestically consumed is more
than triple the amount of the 1970 values. More importantly, this dramatic
increase in demand for materials is estimated to further increase emissions
by 43% in the future. For this reason, the efficient use of materials that have
been largely ignored so far and failed to contribute much to the decoupling
of industrial emissions from Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to
contribute a great potential for future emission reductions (ME, 2019; IEA,
2020b; IRP, 2020; IEA, 2021b-2021c, IPCC, 2022b).
The main aim of this study is to discuss the important role of material
efficiency in the mitigation of carbon emissions in the industrial sector, and the
strategies that can be implemented for this goal. To this end, first, the study
investigates the main reasons why the industry is a “hard-to-abate” sector,
and discusses the industrial sector mitigation options and the critical role of
material efficiency in this regard. Secondly, it discusses the strategies that will
enable material efficiency and in which product life cycles these strategies
can be adopted. The findings of the studies in the literature reveal that an
enormous transition is needed to decarbonize the industry. Moreover, from
the sustainability and circularity point of view, the efficient use of material is
absolutely crucial starting from product design to consumption stages.
In the following sections, the study discusses the current state of industry-
based emissions, the factors that make the sector hard to abate, and the

Year 1 / Issue 2 / July 2022 84