In the early nineties Factor 10 and the environmental concept of dematerialization were developed at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy (Germany) by Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek and his team.

The concept of dematerialization contains the demand for a reduction of human-produced energy and material flows in western industry nations by a factor of 10 or respectively an increase of resource productivity (or "resource efficiency" or "eco efficiency") by a factor of 10.

This directs the main attention to the input-side of economy. The development of resource efficient (eco efficient) products, technologies and services can be an important contribution to reach this goal.

Dematerialization can be measured as Material Input per Service Unit (MIPS) for products, technologies, services, infrastructures or economics areas and thus objectively compared. The inverse of MIPS is called the resource productivity (or "resource efficiency" or "eco efficiency").

MIPS is an elementary measure to estimate the environmental impacts caused by a product or service. The whole life-cycle from cradle to cradle (extraction, production, use, waste/recycling) is considered.

MIPS can be applied in all cases, where the environmental implications of products, processes and services need to be assessed and compared.

A practical application of the MIPS Concept is called material intensity analysis. Material intensity analyses are conducted on the micro-level (focussing specific products and services), as well as on the macro-level (focussing national economies).

Further information about Factor 10 and MIPS can be find in the internet learning program MIPS-Academy (in German language only) developed by the Factor 10 Institute, in a special internet adress of the Wuppertal Institute MIPS-Online as well as in the menus of this website.