Dematerialization and Environmental Sustainability: Challenges and Rebound Effects

In this work, the relationship between sustainability and dematerialization is discussed. More specifically, the sufficient conditions are presented for a sustainability problem to be reduced into a dematerialization one. Furthermore, the rebound effects are introduced in an analytical way. Also, the knowledge embedded through design and manufacturing into the product is discussed and its quantification is linked with dematerialization. An evolution-based analysis has been performed in an attempt to extract meaningful correlations between the aforementioned metrics. Additive Manufacturing is discussed as an example in all the above considerations.