When I think about Al Gore?s documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, the recent rising commodity prices makes me feel that there is a more inconvenient truth than just climate change. Climate change rightly tops the environmental agenda at the moment, but the world faces a more inconvenient truth that must be addressed. The issue is really about survival of the people and the planet.

Economic growth in our modern times cannot be achieved with old consumption and production patterns. Collectively humans are over-utilizing the Earth?s nature-based resources at a rate that is outstripping nature?s ability to renew and replenish them. If we continue our production and consumption trends, it has been estimated that we would need four planet earths by the end of the 21st century.

These extra planets would be needed to provide the resources necessary to maintain rapidly growing consumption patterns as well as effectively absorb the associated wastes and pollution. Global marketing of the current consumer lifestyle is heading for disaster.

The processes that we think of as globalization were central to the environmental cause well before the term globalization came into its current usage. Global environmental concerns were borne out of the recognition that ecological processes do not always respect national boundaries and that environmental problems often have impacts beyond borders and sometimes globally.

Connected to this was the notion of global responsibility and fairness. These ideas were central to the concept of sustainable development that took root in the 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately the current debate on globalization has become de-linked from its environmental roots and contexts.

The spectacular economic expansion we have been seeing during the past century has made the resource crunch a pressing reality that will easily become the single biggest challenge to continued economic prosperity . In the past, technology has ? and in the future, it certainly could ? help to alleviate some pressures by developing new solutions and by more widely deploying existing technological solutions.

However, the prospects of higher demand, growing prices and dwindling stocks are already propelling new races for control over key resources. The race is now on not just for oil, but for metals (global reserves of some metals like gold and copper are likely to be depleted by the middle of this century), minerals, timber and even for recyclable wastes. The central challenge to the future of environment and globalization is consumption, not growth.

Fueled by the ?norms? of consumption that also became globalized through, in part, the global media and advertising, consumption changes magnify the ecological footprints of growth. For example, while global population doubled between 1950 and 2004, global wood use more than doubled, global water use roughly tripled, and consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas increased nearly five times.

■ Factor Four & sustainable innovation

We need to break the links between economic growth and environmental degradation, and finding ways to achieve this ?decoupling?. Almost fifteen years ago the concept of Factor Four was introduced as the smoothest avenue to sustainable development. Factor 4 refers to a factor 4 improvement in resource efficiency, by which we mean doubling output and halving resource use.

The concept comes from a book published in 1997 called Factor Four, by Amory and Hunter Lovins and Ernst von Weizsacker. They showed practical, often profitable ways, to use resources at least four times as efficiently as we do now. It means that, with our present knowledge and available technologies, we can accomplish everything we do with only one fourth the energy and materials we use now.

They gave lots of practical examples across all sectors of how we can do things more efficiently and equitably. In fact many of the examples in the book show a greater improvement than Factor Four. This factor four scenario has already influenced policy in many developed countries and is a powerful concept that should be adopted by our policy makers for the sustainable future of our island.

To meet this challenge of Factor Four, innovation (technological, institutional and social) will be a key contributor to success. It is at the core of creating a sustainable society through a leapfrog change. As a society we will not succeed in creating a sustainable island if we focus merely on doing a little more efficiently than what we currently do. Creation of sustainable systems of production and consumption needs a radical restructuring of existing systems (including products , services, lifestyles, business and measures of economic value) than on incremental improvements. Leapfrog transformations of production and consumption systems will require technological changes but also changes in living patterns, infrastructure, shifts in values and behaviours.

■ Where to start?

One of the key questions that a policy maker dealing with resources efficiency and environmental impacts has to answer is where to start. Which consumption activities cause the greatest resources use and environmental impacts ? All research studies carried out up to now in developed economies show clearly that food , mobility and the built environment account for about 70% of the life cycle environmental impacts of final consumption while accounting for about 50% of the expenditure. With a similar expenditure pattern as the developed countries, we can expect a similar conclusion for Mauritius. And it means that to achieve significant resources efficiency and minimize environmental impacts in the short to medium term we should develop once and for all a sustainable transport system, encourage the construction of sustainable buildings and move towards a sustainable food production and consumption system. Should we focus on these three areas, then the efficiency gains for the country will be significant.

■ The inertia for change

Change however means that the production, market interaction and consumer behaviour must be adapted at the same time. Such a system usually contains a lot of inertia. There are feedback mechanisms in our current society that hinder a policy to change consumption and production patterns. Messages about sustainable lifestyles are widely overpowered by messages promoting material consumption through the media. The desire for material consumption is deeply entrenched in consumer behaviour and social practices. Industry for its part is all too willing to fulfill these wants. More production means more profits and at macro-scale the result is a growing economy(though in monetary terms and not necessarily in quality of life) and more jobs-things that any politician is keen to realize during his or her term of office. Indeed in our present economic system increase in consumption is a declared target for all ministers of Finance. Given the lack of consumer and business support for change in production and consumption patterns it will be difficult to expect too much action from government in this respect.

The development of a policy agenda to change production and consumption patterns has thus so far been slow. Large scale changes are possible only if the different actors align to create a critical mass in favor of doing things differently. It is essential to understand this resistance to change and to adjust our tactics accordingly.

■ Resource efficiency

Economic growth in our modern time can simply not be achieved with old consumption and production patterns. Decoupling of economic growth from increasing resources use and environmental impacts is the key for the survival of our society as we know it. The objective is resource efficiency ? not just using fewer resources per unit of output ? but more well being for all inhabitants and less consumption of the total resource base of the earth.

Improving resource efficiency must be among the top of our priorities if we are genuinely concerned about natural resources use, environmental impacts, material prices and supply security. Quadrupling resource-productivity (doubling wealth while halving resource use) is the smoothest avenue to sustainable development and is achievable with current state of knowledge and technology. Factor Four needs to be declared as a national target by our decision makers.

In the past progress was due to the increase in labour productivity. Resource productivity will now be important. More and more we are seeing the signs of what can only be described as a new Industrial Revolution. This new Industrial Revolution puts resources efficiency and the environment at the centre of conditions for success. Those nations that reconcile their environment and their economy will enjoy an insurmountable economic advantage. Those that don?t do it will pay the price and stay behind.

Mauritius is already in a lose-lose situation, being a net importer of food and energy. In this new Industrial Revolution, ignoring the environment and resources efficiency will be like ignoring the value of machinery and mechanics two centuries ago. Let us remember however that, while efficiency gains are wonderful, a mature society will also have to learn ?sufficiency?.

Prof. Toolseeram RAMJEAWON

University of Mauritius