Use Less strategies
Material efficiency: making more use of less material is essential and feasible: in many applications we can use half as much material for twice as long. However, in the short term, it may take more (costly labour to use less (cheap) material, so we look for ways to make saving easier.
Energy efficiency: Almost all the world's energy is used in motors or heaters. The devices themselves are highly efficient, but not the way they're used. For example, almost all transport energy is used to move the vehicle rather than people or freight. We aim to reveal the hidden opportunities.
Reducing material criticality: We've only done a little work in this area, but showed that criticality is less about an absolute shortage of resources, but more about the time it takes to increase production when demand increases.
Find out more ...
Open up the links below for more information and our relevant publications on each topic
Julian Allwood, mainly with co-authors Tim Gutowski (MIT), Ernst Worrell (Utrecht) and Mike Ashby (Cambridge), has written several motivating papers setting out the case that Material Efficiency is essential and feasible.
Journal papers
- Allwood, J.M., Gutowski, T.G., Serrenho, A.C., Skelton, A.C.H. and Worrell, E. (2017) Industry 1.61803: the transition to an industry with reduced material demand fit for a low carbon future, Royal Society Philosophical Transactions A, 375:20160361.
- Worrell, E., Allwood, J.M. and Gutowksi, T.G. (2016) The role of material efficiency in environmental stewardship, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 41, 575–98
- Allwood, J.M. (2016) Sustainable Materials, Nature Reviews Materials, 1, 15009.
- Gutowski, T.G., Allwood, J.M., Herrmann, C., Sahni, A. (2013) A global assessment of manufacturing, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 38 81-106.
- Allwood, J.M., Ashby, M.F., Gutowski, T.G. and Worrell, E. (2013) Material Efficiency: providing material services with less material production, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 371: 20120496. Http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2012.0496
- Gutowski, T.G., Sahni, S., Allwood, J.M., Ashby, M.F. and Worrell, E. (2013) The Energy Required to Produce Materials: Constraints on Energy Intensity Improvements, Parameters of Demand, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 371: 20120003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2012.0003
- Allwood, J.M., Ashby, M.F., Gutowski, T.G, Worrell, E. (2011) Material Efficiency: a White Paper, Resources Conservation and Recycling, 55, 362–381. Awarded a “30 in 30” prize in 2019, as one of the best 30 papers published in Resources Conservation and Recycling in the past 30 years.
Jonathan Cullen's PhD led to three fundamental papers on energy efficiency - revealing global patterns of energy use, and the opportunities for efficiency in conversion devices and wider systems.
On an extended visit to the Use Less Group, Ma Linwei replicated this global analysis for China.
Journal papers
- Ma, L., Allwood, J.M., Cullen, J.M., Li, Z. (2012) The use of energy in China: tracing the flow of energy from primary source to demand driver, Energy, 40, 174-188.
- Cullen, J.M., Allwood, J.M. and Borgstein, EH. (2011) Reducing energy demand: what are the practical limits?Environmental Science and Technology. 45, 1711–1718
- Cullen, J.M. and Allwood, J.M. (2010) Theoretical efficiency limits in energy conversion devices, Energy 35(5)2059-2069.
- Cullen, J.M. and Allwood, J.M. (2010) The efficient use of energy: tracing the global flow of energy from fuel to service, Energy Policy, 38 75-81.
In a pilot project with Kathryn Moore (Exeter), Jan Cilliers (Imperial College) and Andrew Bloodworth (British Geological Survey), we demonstrated that mineral criticality arose from the ratio of capacity risk (to supply or demand side shocks) to capacity readiness (the speed at which capacity could be expanded.)
David Leal-Ayala built on this to analyse the global flow of Tungsten.
Journal papers
- Andrieu, B., Heydari, M., Mitchell, P. M., Cullen, L., Noskov, A., Allwood, J. M., ... & Cullen, J. M. (2026). Ten years on: are raw material criticality assessments making more sense? Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 229, 108875.
- Moore, K.R., Whyte, N.M., Roberts, D., Allwood, J.M., Leal-Ayala, D.R., Bertrand, G. and Bloodworth, A.J. (2020) The re-direction of small deposit mining: technological solutions for raw materials supply security in a whole systems context, Resources, Conservation & Recycling, X 7 100040.
- Leal-Ayala, D., Allwood, J.M., Petravratzi, E., Brown, T. and Gunn, A. (2015), Mapping the Global Flow of Tungsten to Identify Key Material Efficiency and Supply Security Opportunities, Resources Conservation and Recycling, 103, 19-28.
Reports
- Leal-Ayala, D, Allwood, JM, Bloodworth, A, Cilliers, J, Moore, K (2014) Mineral Criticality = Capacity Risk ÷ Capacity readiness. 12 pages. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, (Output of NERC Catalyst Grant).