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Transmaterialization

Walter C. Labys, Benedum Distinguished Scholar in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Program at West Virginia University, USA, defines ‘Transmaterialization’ as follows: “a recurring industrial transformation in the way that economic societies use materials, a process that has occurred regularly or cyclically throughout history. Instead of a once and for all decline in the intensity of use of certain materials, transmaterialization suggests that materials demand instead experiences phases in which old, lower quality materials linked to mature industries undergo replacement by higher quality or technologically more advanced materials.”

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