Connecting Climate Change Mitigation with Materials, Products, & Waste

This webinar provided an overview of how the life cycle of materials contributes to greenhouse gas emissions – and how materials management approaches, including recycling, composting, and waste and pollution prevention, and environmentally preferable procurement – offer significant opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Materials management is often underutilized in climate action plans because of how conventional greenhouse gas inventories treat these emissions, and the presenters explained the importance of more comprehensive inventory approaches, and how inventories can better reflect the emissions associated with materials – and emissions reduction potential of materials management.

The webinar also covered NEWMOA’s recently-released Climate-Waste Action Plan [PDF] and current initiatives underway to implement this Plan.