CONFERENCE STATEMENT – CLOSING VERSION – UNEDITEDParticipants of the Third International Conference on Eco-Efficiency, held in Egmond aan de Zee, The Netherlands, June 9-11, 2010, discussed how to ensure that 8 billion people in developed an…

On Friday afternoon, June 11, participants of the Eco Efficiency Conference went home with a feeling of being deeply inspired and broader informed in their thinking about the complex field of eco-efficiency. They thanked Gjalt Huppes and his team,…

Paul Ekins said an environmental tax reform is necessary to achieve the goals of eco efficiency. He stressed that this would be a tax shift, not a tax increase.His research has shown that six EU countries (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, S…

Engineers and social scientists need to work together, said Roland Clift in the plenary session on Friday morning, speaking about Sustainable Consumption and Degrowth.Finding common language is difficult. He observed that in the degrowth debate th…

The plenary meeting of the Egmond Conference on Friday morning June 11 included a Compassion Exercise, facilitated by the Avatar Project Team (www.avatar.nl).Participants contributed to ‘increasing the amount of compassion for others’, and by doin…

Participants of the Egmond Eco Efficiency Conference reviewed a draft list of research topics – see an earlier blog post on this topic – and highlighted a few priorities, such as:- consumer behaviour; is the ‘no pain no change’ slogan really true?…

Lively debates in the Egmond Eco Efficiency Conference in Thursday afternoon’s plenary discussion. One of the hot potatoes was the rebound effect, seen as a depressing topic by many, or just talking common sense by others.What’s the Problem? How t…

Rebound effects and growth have been leading to a failure of the efficiency concept to deliver sustainability. How to overcome the addiction of society to growth?A 12 step method was proposed for a recovery process, including admitting the lock-in…

The working group observed that relative decoupling has been possible in many countries. Absolute decoupling however yet to be seen on a wide scale.Hopeful signs come from China where good work is being done in eco parks. Chinese paper industry ha…

The parallel session concluded that meeting efficiency target for transport sector is possible.How? New transportation modes, very light vehicles, fuel efficiency measures .. public policies play a key role: taxation and carbon penalities consider…