According to the ISF, which co-hosted the World Resources Forum Asia Pacific last month where the Action Agenda was launched, Australia uses 75% more resources than Japan to generate each dollar of GDP.

To remain globally competitive and prosperous post-boom, ISF associate professor and research director Damien Giurco said Australian industry and government “urgently” needed to develop a collective vision for prosperity in a “take-make-recreate” circular economy rather than using today's “take-make-dispose” approach.

“The Action Agenda is a starting point for further discussion and research to position resource productivity and innovation as high priorities on the national agenda,” Giurco said.

“It outlines four future opportunities for Australia to achieve a new wave of prosperity, as our key trade partners in Japan, China and Europe are already gearing up for.

“We need to make sure Australia is in a strategic position to build a resilient, competitive economy and promote responsible prosperity within the Asia-Pacific region.

“For example, there is a massive opportunity for business in Australia to harness the renewable energy transition for innovation in sectors beyond the energy industries such as mining and manufacturing – $270 billion was invested last year in the transition globally.

“We need to export responsible minerals, and part of this is closing the loop on waste and growing reverse logistics to support circular resource cycles.”

ISF intends to bring together a group of key stakeholders to develop the Action Agenda into a five-year strategy for resource productivity and circular economy.

It said collaboration across industry, government, non-government organisations and researchers to build on the World Resources Forum Asia Pacific and the Wealth from Waste Cluster was key.

“ISF’s goal is to encourage organisations, particularly industry leaders and entrepreneurs, to join us in shaping the future vision and strategy for resource productivity in Australia, ahead of October’s World Resources Forum, where we will discuss the strategy in the context of regional and global strategies,” Giurco said.

CSIRO executive director energy and resources, and forum keynote speaker, Dr Alex Wonhas agreed that Australian industry and entrepreneurs needed to regroup and source opportunities based on "circular economy".

“In the 21st century, one of the – if not the – most important challenges we have to solve is how we can bring prosperity to an ever-growing population of our planet and do that in a sustainable way," Wonhas said.

“It is possible to grow our economy in a sustainable and prosperous way, as long as we focus on three things: make sure we are developing the capability to understand the possible resource use trajectories; second, put the market and other mechanisms in place to guide our investment; and third, keep working on new and novel solutions and sustainable business.”

ISF said Asia-Pacific was driving future resource consumption and Australia could improve its own resource productivity as well as help economies in the Asia-Pacific.

According to recent research from the United Nations Environment Program, Australia uses four times more resources than resource-poor Japan to deliver the same output in the economy.

“Australia extracts 77 tonnes of materials per person from mining and agriculture per year,” UNEP Asia-Pacific manager and forum keynote speaker Janet Salem said.

“Part of that is for export, but 44 out of the 77t of materials per capita per year stays within Australia’s borders.

“This is high compared to other countries in the region that, on average, use approximately 9t per capita per year and represents an opportunity for resource efficiency and creating wealth from waste.”

As a whole, Asia Pacific regions used 53% of the world’s resources yet only generated 25% of the world’s GDP.

Salem recommended that countries in the region, especially Australia, look to more efficient and intelligent use of resources in areas such as infrastructure and technology in order to remain viable and prosper.

“We are seeing changes in the region, China has already introduced policy framework for a circular economy by implementing price and regulatory instruments at a government level, private enterprise has followed suit and introduced the technology to support the circular economy,” Salem said.