Members of The Club of Rome will be joining the World Resources Forum 2025 conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on 2-3 September 2025.
A special session will discuss the pollution impact of mineral resources, which is intensified due to the increase in extraction and consumption.
Depletion was identified very early on as an issue in mineral production, and it remains a fundamental element of the current debate on the subject. In 1972, the Report to The Club of Rome – The Limits to Growth, identified how depletion intensified the problem of pollution related to the extraction and consumption of mineral commodities.
According to the report, carried out using system dynamics, in some cases pollution can trump depletion in reducing extraction profits and, eventually, force production to stop. One example is the extraction of hydrocarbons which causes global warming, and other pollution problems such as ocean acidification, microplastics and “forever chemicals”. While CO2 is not normally classified as a pollutant, it may have harmful effects on human health and on the whole ecosystem. Negative effects on human mental abilities are seen already at CO2 concentrations commonly experienced indoors today, a recent publication explains the implications of rising CO2 on human beings.
The session at the World Resources Forum 2025 aims to highlight the problem in general, with a special view on fossil fuels and plastics and on the possibilities of their substitution by non-polluting substances.
The Other Side of Depletion: The Pollution Impact of Mineral Resources
2 September, 11:00-12:00
Speakers include:
Ugo Bardi – Consorzio Interuniversitario di Scienza e Tecnologia dei Materiali (INSTM) and member of The Club of Rome
Jane Muncke – Food Packaging Forum Foundation
Kuo-Wei Huang – King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and member, The Club of Rome
Carlos Alvarez Pereira – Secretary General, The Club of Rome
