Here's another decoupling challenge for business

On the day it was announced* that carbon emissions may have decoupled from economic growth in a single year for the first time, here's another decoupling challenge for business...

"By 2009 we were extracting 68 billion tonnes of resources, compared to around 7 billion tonnes in 1900. Under current trends of population growth and expanding middles classes, global extraction of resources is set to reach 140 billion tonnes by 2050. This will probably exceed the availability and accessibility of resources, as well as the carrying capacity of the planet to absorb the impacts of their extraction and use."

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner at the G7 Resource Efficiency Forum in Berlin.

See more at: http://www.unep.org/newscentre/Default.aspx?DocumentID=26788&ArticleID=34805&l=en#sthash.UCzvlY4u.LU5NZxKZ.dpuf

*Growth in global carbon emissions stalls in 2014

The growth in global carbon emissions in 2014 was flat for the first time in 40 years, even though economic growth was at 3 percent, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Economic slowdown in China, and its shift to clean energy was a key driver behind the improvement.

"This is a real surprise. We have never seen this before," the IEA chief economist, Fatih Birol, and incoming executive director, told the Financial Times.

http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/news/2015/march/global-energy-related-emissions-of-carbon-dioxide-stalled-in-2014.html