Sustainable materials management

According to the Annex to the G7 Leaders’ June 8, 2015 Declaration, global raw material use rose during the 20th century at about twice the rate of population growth.

[2] This increasing consumption has come at a cost to the environment, including habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, overly stressed fisheries and desertification.

Traditional patterns of material consumption in the United States follow a Cradle-to-Grave pattern of raw material extraction, product manufacturing, distribution to consumers, use by consumers, and disposal; coined by The Story of Stuff author Annie Leonard as the "take-make-waste" linear economy and commonly referred to as the throw-away society,[4] these familiar waste management practices are being revised to bring about sustainable management of resources.

SMM has been adopted as a regulatory approach to manage materials by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and many other governments around the world.

The manufacturer, or producer, of the product has the greatest ability to minimize adverse impacts, but other stakeholders, such as suppliers, retailers, and consumers, also play a role.

The Dictionary of Sustainable Management defines Cradle-to-Cradle as "A phrase invented by Walter R. Stahel in the 1970s and popularized by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their 2002 book of the same name.

By contrast cradle-to-grave refers to a company taking responsibility for the disposal of goods it has produced, but not necessarily putting products’ constituent components back into service.

[14] Since the 1980s, the OECD has worked to promote policies that prevent, reduce and manage waste in ways that mitigate environmental impacts.

In this report, EPA defines SMM as “... an approach to serving human needs by using/reusing resources productively and sustainably throughout their life cycles, generally minimizing the amount of materials involved and all associated environmental impacts”.