Let's talk about the material footprint and its significance for sustainability

In this episode of About Sustainability, we talked to Heinz Schandl, who joined us from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. He is an expert on natural resource use, and international resource flows. Among other things, Heinz explained about resource efficiency, the socioeconomic drivers of resource use, and about the possibilities of decoupling economic development and human well-being from resource use. 

He also explained how resource use is measured through what we call the material footprint, and why it is important to capture the international dimension of that footprint. 

We also learned about progress in indicators and data availability so that the international linkages between resource extraction and final consumption can be tracked and managed.  

All these items are important for measuring progress across several SDGs including SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth, and SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production.  

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.