In the 20th century the world population grew 4 times, economic output 22 times and fossil fuel consumption 14 times. The total volume of material extracted or harvested worldwide reached nearly 60 billion metric tons per year in 2007, a 65% increase from 1980 and an estimated 8 fold increase over the last century.

Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) is increasingly recognised as a policy approach that can make a key contribution to green growth. The way economies use material resources determines to a significant extent what environmental pressures are being generated and SMM can help to better manage this linkage. OECD countries are currently implementing a broad range of policies that are relevant to this approach...

This chapter proposes four broad SMM policy principles as guidance for specific governmental policies to shift the behaviour of economic actors and human societies toward meeting their material needs without destabilising natural systems. The chapter provides a description and rationale for each of the SMM policy principles along with suggested strategies for implementation and examples of national applications by OECD member countries.

Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) and the concept of addressing waste issues by looking at the value chain are well accepted components of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) and waste policy. However, both face a number of challenges in implementation including the establishment of effective targets. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the opportunities, challenges and important considerations faced by policy makers when setting and implementing SMM-related targets.

This chapter seeks to identify current sustainable materials management policy instruments across OECD countries. A review of selected SMM policy instruments evaluates the extent to which the instruments are efficient and effective at achieving SMM. Lessons learned from existing policy implementation are then used to formulate conclusions and recommendations for the structure of future SMM policy instruments.