Factor Four: Doubling Wealth-Halving Resource Use

This is an ambitious book which seeks to redirect technological progress. Aggressive increases in labour productivity constitute a rather questionable programme at a time when more than 800 million people are out of work. At the same time, scarce natural resources are squandered. If resource productivity were increased by a factor of four, the world could enjoy twice the wealth that is currently available, whilst simultaneously halving the stress placed on our natural environment. We believe that we can demonstrate that this quadrupling of resource productivity is technically feasible and would produce massive macro-economic gains, ie make individuals, firms and all of society better off.