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Existing approaches to reducing environmental impacts along the metal production and consumption chain are focused largely at the plant scale for primary production, rather than considering the whole metal cycle. As such, many opportunities for systemic improvements are overlooked. This paper develops an approach to designing preferred futures for entire metal cycles that deliver reduced carbon footprints. Dynamic material flow models in Visual Basic® are used to provide life-cycle-impact-assessment indicators, which help identify key intervention points along the metal cycle. This analysis also identifies which actors or agents along the value chain are responsible for, or can influence, behaviour which affects environmental performance. With this information, it is possible to evaluate different scenarios for transition paths to achieve reduced impact. These scenarios consider combinations of new technology, increased metal recycling and demand management strategies. A case study for the copper cycle in the USA shows that to meet a CO2 reduction target of 60% by 2050, innovative technologies for primary processing of mined ore will play a limited role, due to their increasing impacts in the future associated with mining ever lower ore grades. To compensate for this whilst meeting demand projections, recycling of old scrap would be required to increase from 18% to 80%, requiring extensive collaboration between primary and secondary producers. An alternate scenario which focuses on demand reduction for copper by 1% per year, meets the CO2 target whilst only requiring an increase in the recycling rate from 18% to 36%. Together, these suggest that there is merit in examining the 'metal-in-use' stage of the metal value chain more closely in order to achieve targeted reductions in CO2. The approach also highlights the inherent trade-offs between different aspects of environmental performance which are required when pursuing CO2 reduction targets.

tates participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an agreement among the Governors of ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states to reduce greenhouse gases from power plants, have announced that the first ever CO2 allowance auction in the United States for a mandatory emissions reduction program will take place on September 10, 2008.

The “Energy Plus” office building, to be located outside of Paris, is designed to produce all its own energy for heating, lighting and air conditioning. This zero-energy building, according to the designers, will be the greenest office building ever created. It will accomplish this by having more solar panels on its roof than any other building - producing enough energy to power the entire building and still feed extra back into the grid.

They have successfully created a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient solar energy source ever. Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt. This makes, for the first time in history, solar power cheaper than burning coal.