When you use something, it becomes a resource. The three main resource categories are:

• Energy
• Water
• Raw materials (such as metals, oil, food ingredients or chemicals).

We use all these resources daily, often in heating, lighting, food, clothing, and water. Your business relies heavily on all three resource categories and will likely use several raw materials within your production processes.

This Toolkit will cover how you can be more resource-efficient in these three main categories.

The only way to achieve sustainable growth as an organization is to become more resource efficient – creating more with less. Keeping valuable resources in circulation within your business for as long as possible, rather than disposing of them, means you will retain value instead of creating waste.

Taking action to improve resource efficiency can benefit your organization in many ways.  By using energy, water, and raw materials more efficiently (and therefore using fewer resources for a greater output), your business can save money. For example, research shows manufacturing companies could cut their product costs by 50% by reusing materials and components.

As a business, you may feel pressure from customers, stakeholders or investors to become more resource efficient, reduce your carbon footprint (the amount of greenhouse gas emissions you release into the atmosphere) and prove how sustainable you are. You may also be required by law to report on these. You should also consider the effect your resource use and operations have on your customers’ carbon footprint, so it is essential that you take action to reduce your carbon footprint, or you risk losing key clients. Meeting and exceeding your customers’ expectations is essential to the survival and growth of your organization.

Haleon and Reckitt have chosen to work with Manufacture 2030 to enable and empower their suppliers to meet their climate commitments.

Manufacture 2030’s intuitive tools and supplier success team make it easy for you to help your customers meet their carbon commitments, strengthening relationships while identifying targeted opportunities for you to enhance the environmental reputation and commercial performance of your business.

Resource scarcity is when the demand for a resource exceeds the supply. The global resource market is expected to increase by 300% by 2050. As this demand for raw materials increases, finding and extracting new resources becomes increasingly hard and expensive.

Resources are under pressure worldwide due to rising populations, growing economies, and changing consumer trends. By 2030, the middle class is expected to increase from 2 billion people in 2012 to 5 billion. This rise in wealth will mean an increase in demand for for consumer goods, like cars, electronic devices and washing machines. This will put more pressure on finite/scarce resources like rare earth metals, food, oil, and water.

More demand for resources will have two key consequences:

• There will be less resources available, especially non-renewable ones.
• Prices will be volatile due to shortages in supply.

This could impact your organization in two ways:

• Price volatility: We can expect commodity prices to continue rising due to shortages in supply, conflicts causing disruptions, and the impacts of climate change on production. Price volatility for raw materials is higher now than at any other time in the last 100 years. For example, the price of soybeans increased 75% on average between 2019 and 2023.
  
  
• Delayed investment: price volatility creates uncertainty around costs and prices, often leading to delayed investment for businesses because investors do not want to take the risk. Being more efficient with your resources will help protect your organization against resource scarcity, for example when crops don’t grow due to floods, and price volatility risks. 

Environmental legislation is being introduced worldwide to reduce climate change impacts and incentivize governments and organizations to meet national and international environmental targets.

Your business must be aware of all of the legislation that impacts you and your customers. If you do not comply with this legislation, you may lose business or be subject to significant fines and legal action.

Some examples of legislation introduced to help preserve our resources include: 

Global agreements:

• Kyoto Protocol: an international treaty adopted in 2005 committing 192 state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level that would prevent further harm to the climate system.
• The Paris Agreement: an international treaty adopted in 2015 by 196 parties, committing them to keep the rise in global temperature

EU regulation:

• Directive on Single-use Plastics: by 2029, at least 90% of plastic bottles must be collected separately.
• The Packaging Directive: by 2025, at least 65% of all packaging waste must be recycled.
• Landfill Directive: limits the amount of municipal waste landfilled to 10% by 2035.
• Waste Framework Directive: by 2025, at least 55% of municipal waste must be recycled. The law also introduces ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’, stating that the producer must pay for waste management costs.
• Water Framework Directive: the primary law for water protection in Europe. It applies to coastal water surfaces and groundwaters and focuses on reducing and removing pollution to ensure enough water to support wildlife and human needs.

US legislation:

• Clean Water Act: implemented pollution control programs and made it unlawful to discharge any pollutant into navigable waters without a permit.
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA):  legislative framework for managing hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste.
• Energy Policy Act: provides loans for developing or using innovative technologies that avoid producing greenhouse gases and sets a law that increases the amount of biofuel that must be mixed with gasoline in the US.

Legislation, like the ones listed above, will help countries transition towards a more sustainable, resource-efficient economy – where the negative impacts of climate change are minimized