Chapter Two - Additive manufacturing for a dematerialized economy

Abstract

To reduce the environmental impacts of manufacturing requires more than a change in production practices; it needs a rethink of society’s economic values and structures to change the public’s relationship with products and consumption. This is a difficult future to create, or even envisage, in societies hampered by the entrenched industrial practices and consumer expectations built during the last century. However, recent developments in digital technology are providing opportunities to disrupt and reframe production practices and commercial interactions, which could enable a shift to product services systems over products and distributed manufacturing over centralized production. The focus of this chapter is on the potential of additive manufacturing (3D printing) to be a key sustainability tool in working towards a low-impact, dematerialized society. Backcasting is used to propose an alternative future, then work backwards, to map out ways forward from now, rather than a prediction modelling approach based on existing trends and trajectories.