On November 8th and November 9th Stephan Lutter gave two talks at a conference at the European Parliament. As a part of the REdUSE project Friends of the Earth was organising the conference “Responsible or Irresponsible? Europe’s Resource Use and its Impacts”.

On the first day Stephan Lutter presented a comprehensive report which has been published just recently on the connection between material use and water consumption. The report is called “UNDER PRESSURE. How our material consumption threatens the planet’s water resources” and was translated into eight different languages. The report explains also by the means of specific examples of, for instance, Lithium extraction in Chile how Europe’s current thirst for raw materials is threatening the water resources of the countries rich in resources.

On the second day, Stephan Lutter gave insights into the results of a study SERI carried out for Friends of the Earth on actual land demand related to the resources and products consumed in Europe. The study illustrates that to satisfy Europe’s consumption requirements large quantities of land are used in different parts of the world. Hence, Europe has a considerable land “footprint” all around the globe.