The overriding aim of the work at the Wuppertal Institute is to design practical
strategies to protect the ecosphere and achieve sustainable development. A foremost strategy to achieve this goal is through a dematerialization of our economies by a factor 10 until the year 2040.
The dematerialization strategy can be achieved through either a reduction of the material input mi, by constant living standards in terms of service units, or by reducing levels of service units, or a combination of the two. If a substantial reduction in living standards is to be avoided, the aim should be to reduce the overall "material input per service unit" (MIPS). Eco-efficient service concepts allow such a reduction of MIPS, since service-unit output is increased while material input remains constant or is reduced.
This paper describes such a dematerialization strategy, how to measure progress using MIPS and looks at ways of designing eco-efficient service concepts.
We will use the terms "dematerialization", "increasing resource-productivity", "increasing eco-efficiency" and "low-MIPS strategies" as synonyms.
Friedrich Hinterberger, Sascha Kranendonk, Maria J. Welfens, Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek:
Increasing Resource Productivity through Eco-efficient Services
Wuppertal Paper no. 13 (May 1994)
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