A global sustainability perspective on 3D printing technologies

The model calculations show that 3DP contains the potential to reduce costs by 170-593 billion US $, the total primary energy supply by 2.54-9.30 EJ and CO2 emissions by 130.5-525.5 Mt by 2025. The great range within the saving potentials can be explained with the immature state of the technology and the associated uncertainties of predicting market and technology developments. The energy and CO2 emission intensities of industrial manufacturing are reducible by maximally 5% through 3DP by 2025, as 3DP remains a niche technology. If 3DP was applicable to larger production volumes in consumer products or automotive manufacturing, it contains the (theoretical) potential to absolutely decouple energy and CO2 emission from economic activity.