The basic cause of the environmental problems is, that private material consumption has grown considerably the last century - particularly during the latter half. A resource cycle is always resulting from material consumption, starting with the extraction of resources from mother earth and ending in wastes and emissions - to the extend the net-flow is not reduced by recycling. The impact on the environment by the sum of these flows of wastes and emissions has reached a level at the limit of sustainability - or has already passed it.

Due to the continuing population growth and growth in per capita consumption the global consumption must be expected to increase by at least a factor 4 up till the middle of this century. To counteract the impact on the environment of this increased consumption , the resource productivity (or eco-efficiency) must be increased - at least by a factor 4.

Increasing resource productivity (or eco-efficiency) means reducing the quantity of natural resources used per unit of consumption. Thereby the impact on the environment per unit of consumption is reduced. This requires radical product and manufacturing process innovations.

Science and technology could give us such improvements if competition in the market economy was made the driving force by resource taxes and other market economic instruments.

Besides an Efficiency revolution through increased Resource Productivity there is also a need for a Sufficiency revolution - making us content with the high level of material consumption already achieved in the industrialized countries. Also bringing the population explosion to an end as soon as possible is of vital importance. But these factors are not topics of this site.