Evaluating the sustainable use of resources: Session in LCM2023

International audienceResources are used for their instrumental value, i.e. for their utility in the anthroposphere. Given the volume of resources consumed each year in various industrial sectors in a globalized market as well as the non-renewable nature of abiotic resources, their sustainable use might be compromised. Many approaches have been developed and applied to evaluate the sustainable use of resources. Among them, resource criticality aims at assessing the risks associated with resource supply for a given market. Methodological developments have been proposed for the last 10 years to evaluate the criticality of resources and integrate it into broader sustainability tools. In parallel, LCA captures the intrinsic environmental impacts of resource use from their extraction to their multiple life cycles, however, discussion on how to quantify resource use and efficiency on the safeguard subject for resources and its consideration in LCA are still ongoing. These discussions include concepts such as resource ‘value’, ‘accessibility’, ‘quality’ or ‘functionality’ without consensual definition of these concepts and the way to assess/quantify them. These concepts are moreover relevant both in the LCA framework and in the measure of resource efficiency towards a circular economy. At the crossroads between sustainability and circular economy, this session welcomes new developments and approaches exploring how to assess the sustainable use of resources. Industrial perspectives on how to evaluate and ensure the sustainable supply and use of resources are also welcomed