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There has been a rapid increase in the amount of resources tied up in buildings. Shutterstock

The volume of natural resources used in buildings and transport infrastructure increased 23-fold between 1900 and 2010, according to our research. Globally, there are now 800 billion tonnes of natural resource “stock” tied up in these constructions, two-thirds of it in industrialised nations alone.

This trend is set to continue. While industrialised countries have lost some momentum, emerging economies are growing rapidly, China especially. If all countries were to catch up to the per capita level of the industrialised nations, this would quadruple the amount of natural resources tied up in the built environment.

In Australia, 70% of the buildings and infrastructure that will be used in 2050 have not yet been built. Constructing all of this will require a huge amount of natural resources and will severely impact the environment.

To avoid this, we need work to build more efficiently and waste less of our resources. Our buildings need to last longer and become the inputs of future construction projects at the end of their lifetime.

The impact of the expansion

Continuing the massive expansion of natural resource consumption would not only require vast quantities of new raw materials, it would also result in considerable environmental impact. It would require massive changes in land use for quarrying sand and gravel, and more energy for extraction, transport and processing. And, if we do not change course, more raw material use now means more waste later.

All of this will be accompanied by a large rise in carbon dioxide emissions, making it much harder to achieve the climate goals agreed in Paris. Cement production alone, for example, is responsible for about 5% of global carbon emissions.

Building sustainability

It is certainly possible to build more sustainably. This requires us to use natural resources more efficiently, reducing the amount of materials and emissions related to economic activities. One strategy for achieving this is to create a more circular economy, which emphasises re-use and recycling. A circular economy turns consumption and production into a loop.

Currently, only 12% of materials used for buildings and infrastructure come from recycling. In part, this is due to the fact that globally, four times more materials are used in building than are released as demolition waste. This has, of course, to do with the scale and speed at which some countries are building.

Yet the potential for recycling is very large. Buildings and infrastructure are ageing and in the next 20 years alone there could be as much as 270 billion tonnes of demolished material globally. This is equivalent to the volume accrued over the previous one hundred years. This material will either have to be disposed in landfill, at very high cost, or it could be reused.

As we noted, 70% of the buildings and infrastructure that will be used in Australia in 2050 have not yet been built. This signals massive investment in new materials but also very large amounts of demolition waste from today’s infrastructure.

The opportunity

There is a window of opportunity for more sustainable building if we decouple economic growth from increased use of natural resources. We can do this by improving quality and use of existing infrastructure and buildings, extending lifespans, using better design, and planning for recycle and reuse.

Better quality building materials and better design can extend the lifetime of buildings, resulting in lower maintenance costs and saving primary materials, energy and waste. Eco-industrial parks and industrial clusters as well as sharing of information about waste flows can establish new relationships among industries where the waste of one production process can become the input of another process.

This doesn’t just make environmental sense. There are potentially large economic gains to be had from more efficient use of resources. This includes increased employment, increased productivity and less need for government subsidies.

Achieving a transition to long lived buildings, infrastructure and products will require new business models and new skills. It depends on skilling and re-skilling existing and new workers in the construction and manufacturing industry. Some of these changes are not going to happen spontaneously but will benefit from well designed policy that rewards resource efficiency and sustainability.

But first, we need more information about stocks and flows of materials throughout the economy, to allow governments and business leaders to plan for the necessary innovation.

Heinz Schandl receives funding from United Nations Environment and the United Nations Commission for Regional Development (UNCRD). He is a member of the UN Environment International Resource Panel (IRP) and president elect of the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE).

Fridolin Krausmann receives funding from the Austrian Science Foundation and the European Commission research fund.

Exclusive: Coral bleaching found near Palm Island as unusually warm waters are expected off eastern Australia, with areas hit in last year’s event in mortal danger

The embattled Great Barrier Reef could face yet more severe coral bleaching in the coming month, with areas badly hit by last year’s event at risk of death.

Images taken by local divers last week and shared exclusively with the Guardian by the Australian Marine Conservation Society show newly bleached corals discovered near Palm Island.

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Damian Carrington is half right (The war against air pollution has begun – and it will be fought in cities, 13 February) in that cities bear a terrible burden from air pollution and municipal action is critical to address it. However, city governments cannot succeed alone. Much of urban pollution stems from outside city limits and significant progress will only be achieved with policies that also require national, regional and even international commitment.

A significant part of city air pollution drifts in from regional sources like wood-burning rural households, coal-fired power plants, industries and the open burning of agricultural waste and rubbish. Commuters driving in from car-centric suburbs and transport between cities contribute to urban congestion and pollution too, stymying smart city initiatives like investments in public transportation and safer streets for walking and cycling.

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The US rocket company sends a cargo ship to resupply the International Space Station.

Retailers say demand is at its highest for a decade with popularity spreading from fruit and vegetables to other groceries

Demand for organic food is at its highest for more than a decade, according to major retailers.

That’s good news for an industry that was hit hard by the economic downturn but now seems to be returning to rude health as more shoppers say organic food is worth paying the premium for. This week the Soil Association will release its annual report on the state of the organic food market, which is expected to show that it has grown for the fourth consecutive year.

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Globally, the impacts of climate change are going to contribute to human migration. Where it occurs, it should be supported so as to protect people’s communities, livelihoods, rights, and health, argues Dr Celia McMichael.

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One in four slaughterhouses are failing to take basic hygiene precautions to stop contaminated meat reaching high street butchers and supermarkets.

An analysis of government audits carried out at more than 300 abattoirs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland identified major hygiene failings in more than a quarter of the meat plants. The failings could expose consumers to serious food poisoning illnesses such as E coli, salmonella or campylobacter.

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The long-planned space mission that seeks to detect gravitational waves is on course to be selected this summer.

RSPCA believes baby chickens came from commercial producer but were dumped by a third party

About 1,000 day-old chicks have been abandoned in a field. RSPCA inspectors said members of the public made the discovery of the newly hatched chickens in a field in Crowland, near Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire on Friday.

Many of the chicks are believed to be in good health, although some had died while others had to be put down due to their injuries, the animal welfare charity said.

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Citizen photos taken during August's total solar eclipse in the US will be spliced into continuous videos.

Long-dormant microbes are found inside giant crystals of the Naica mountain caves - and revived.

Slufters Inclosure, New Forest This hardy specimen of butterfly has found an ideal basking site among still damp grasses in a bed of fern

On a bright, cold morning, sandwiched between days of rain and nights of frost, we explore Slufters Inclosure, an area first separated in 1862, when it was planted with Scots pine. It is 6C (43F) when we leave home but the southerly slopes here are harvesting the heat of the sun, and the temperature gradually lifts (just) into double figures. It’s enough to bring liveliness to a dormant scene and makes us wonder from a distance what we will find.

Hardly are we in when a dark shape shoots into the sky, does a looping circle around some upper branches and drops to the bankside. This battered red admiral is taking the opportunity offered by a brief change in the weather to soak up some warmth, and transfer it into energy that powers these airborne whorls, and may help to carry the butterfly through the chill days yet to come. A little further down the ride, we spot another, almost immaculate, Vanessa atalanta that has found its ideal basking site among still damp grasses in a bed of hard fern, Blechnum spicant.

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Gliding over a glacier in the Himalayas is a metre long squirrel with a smallish head, silky fur as long as your little finger and a fluffy tail like a fox. The wooly flying squirrel has hardly ever been seen alive.

The Minerals Council seems mostly intent on using its submission to electoral donations committee to kneecap environmental groups opposed to new mines

In 2010 the mining industry’s $22m campaign against Kevin Rudd’s resources tax helped bring down a prime minister. For years it has spent huge sums on donations and advertising and lobbying to exert enormous political influence. But the deep-pocketed miners really don’t like it when those with different views find the cash and the smarts to wield some clout.

The latest squeal came this week in an appearance by the Minerals Council of Australia before the joint standing committee on electoral donations, which seems likely to reach a bipartisan consensus on banning foreign donations to political parties and other organisations that might influence the outcome of elections – including associated entities (like unions or fundraising foundations) and activist groups like GetUp.

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A very large, and potentially very lucrative, shale gas field has been identified in the Northern Territory, 500 kilometres southeast of Darwin. But the NT Government has a moratorium on fracking. We hear about this latest development in the territory at a time when the nation is debating our energy security and some are saying the gas option has to be revived.

What are governments doing around the world to try to beat one of the most costly diseases in wheat; and a leading global scientist warns 'anti-science' is leading to poor decisions.

• Senate approves former Oklahoma attorney general 52-46
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Oklahoma’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt, has won Senate confirmation to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a federal agency he repeatedly sued to rein in its reach during the Obama administration.

The vote on Friday was 52-46 as Republican leaders used their party’s narrow Senate majority to push Pruitt’s confirmation despite calls from Democrats to delay the vote until requested emails are released next week.

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Genetically-modified hens that can lay eggs from different poultry breeds are helping scientists set up a "frozen aviary" to conserve rare birds.

Sea turtles laying eggs, buffalo and a swan lake are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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