DOMESTIC MATERIAL CONSUMPTION INDICATOR AND NATURAL RESOURCES: A EUROPEAN ANALYSIS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE

The study investigates the relation between per capita Domestic Material Consumption indicator (DMC) and per capita income. Economic literature focuses mainly on air, water and land pollution while we consider as environmental degradation the consumption on natural resources extracted from the environment. Using a cross– European panel of countries over the period 2000-2011, our results confirm the absence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) between per capita DMC and per capita GDP both for EU-27 vs. 30 European countries and for Western vs. Eastern European countries. The turning points are so high that it is present a monotonic increasing relation between DMC indicator and GDP

Consumption-based material flow indicators - Comparing six ways of calculating the Austrian raw material consumption providing six results

Understanding the environmental implications of consumption and production depends on appropriate monitoring tools. Material flow accounting (MFA) is a method to monitor natural resource use by countries and has been widely used in research and policy. However, the increasing globalization requires the consideration of "embodied" material use of traded products. The indicator raw material consumption (RMC) represents the material use - no matter where in the world it occurs - associated with domestic final demand. It provides a consumption-based perspective complementary to the MFA indicators that have a territorial focus. Several studies on RMC have been presented recently but with diverging results; hence, a better understanding of the underlying differences is needed. This article presents a comparison of Austrian RMC for the year 2007 calculated by six different approaches (3 multi-regional input-output (MRIO) and 3 hybrid life-cycle analysis-IO approaches). Five approaches result in an RMC higher than the domestic material consumption (DMC). One hybrid LCA-IO approach calculates RMC to be lower than DMC. For specific material categories, results diverge by 50% or more. Due to the policy relevance of the RMC and DMC indicators it is paramount that their robustness is enhanced, which needs both data and method harmonization

El metabolismo social en la cuenca baja del plata : un análisis desde los outputs para evaluar las transformaciones del entorno bioproductivo

La noción de Metabolismo Social es de larga data aunque en las últimas décadas han aparecido novedosas metodologías que pretenden dar cuenta de estas interacciones sociedad-naturaleza. Algunos de estos enfoques tienen una mirada de tipo caja negra donde cuantifican entradas y salidas del sistema en tanto que otros más exhaustivos pretenden analizar lo que sucede en los cinco procesos metabólicosociales (apropiación, transformación, circulación, consumo y excreción). Recientemente se han publicado estudios de este tipo para Latinoamérica y para Argentina. La hipótesis de este trabajo es que analizando la evolución de los outputs también se puede obtener una interesante perspectiva de las transformaciones que ocurren dentro del sistema. Concentrándose en la Cuenca Baja del Plata como zona de estudio, el trabajo propone que a través del análisis de la logística de cargas se pueden rastrear las transformaciones que ocurren "aguas arriba" en la cadena productiva y en el entorno bioproductivo en el cual se asientan.The notion of Social Metabolism is long-standing but in recent decades have appeared novel methodologies that seek to analyse society-nature interactions. Some of these approaches have a look of black box quantifing inputs and outputs of the system while ohers aim to analyze what happens in the five social metabolic processes (appropriation, transformation, circulation, consumption and excretion). Recently it has published studies of this type for Latin America and Argentina. The hypothesis of this paper is that analyzing the evolution of the outputs we can also get an interesting perspective on the changes of the system. Focusing on the Lower Del Plata Basin as study area we suggest that through the analysis of freight logistics can track the changes that occur "upstream" in the production chain and in the environment in which they settle

Historical trends in abiotic and biotic resource flows in the EU (1990-2010)

In its Communication “Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe” the European Commission defined a vision for EU resource consumption by 2050: the economy will have grown compatibly with resource constraints and planetary boundaries, preserving a high standard of living and lowering the environmental impacts. Such vision entails the sustainable management of natural resources, i.e. raw materials, energy, water, air, land and soil as well as biodiversity and ecosystems. In this paper, we focus on analysing the trends of abiotic and biotic resource consumption within the EU27 over the past 20 years, beyond traditional mass-based approaches to resource accounting (e.g. Domestic Material Consumption DMC and total material requirements, TMR). In fact, our assessment is performed at inventory level (thus accounting for the biophysical flows of resources) and at impact assessment level, using different life-cycle impact assessment methods (LCIA) for resource depletion and scarcity. The resources considered in the analysis include only those extracted in EU territory, including: raw materials (metals and minerals), energy carriers, biotic and water resources and the timeframe is 20 years (1990-2010). The final aim is the assessment of the evolution of resource flows in the economy (LCI) and the related resource depletion (LCIA) due to European production and consumption. Trends of resource consumption and associated depletion as well as other existing indicators for monitoring resource efficiency are reported and analysed with the aim of: highlighting the occurrence of decoupling over time, both in absolute and relative terms and giving a comprehensive overview of trends related to different resources, usually handled separately in the existing literature. To complete the sustainability assessment of resource consumption research needs are listed, particularly concerning the need of complementing the study with the analysis of socio-economic drivers underpinning the resource consumption trends.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Evaluation of Environmental Accounting Methodologies for the assessment of global environmental impacts of traded goods and services.

Environmental accounting methods (EAM) are currently getting a strong interest from political entities, multinational corporations and citizens. EAMs are applied to a large range of socio-techno-economic activities for monitoring and managing their environmental performance over time: at macro-level to implement the environmental pillar of sustainable development, at meso-level for companies reporting and at micro-level for comparing the environmental footprints of products. IMEA project (IMports Environmental Accounting) is a SKEP-Era-net project (Scientific Knowledge for Environmental Protection) aiming at assessing the potential of EAMs to consider the challenges from globalization and environmental impacts linked to international trade. It was lead by MINES ParisTech/ARMINES with partners from the Institute of Social Ecology, Vienna, TNO, University of Oulu, and VITO, carried out between June 2008 and September 2009. The global aim of IMEA is to provide elements to answer the following question: "Does a given EAM meet societal expectations and how does it cope with new challenges from globalization?". IMEA has focused on the analysis of these challenges based on what EAMs "are", "how" they function and the use of their results in decision-making by the means of an archetypical workflow and an analytical framework. Based on this comprehensive analytical framework, the following EAMs. have been assessed in detail: Life Cycle Assessment, Economy-Wide Material Flow Analysis, Physical Input Output Tables, Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis, land use indicators like the Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production, the Actual Land Demand or the Ecological Footprint, and the Water Footprint

Evaluation of Environmental Life Cycle Approaches for Policy and Decision Making Support in Micro and Macro Level Applications

The European Commission (EC) has strengthened environmental and sustainability oriented policies and strategies by introducing Life Cycle Thinking. Amongst others, this is a key consideration in the Integrated Product Policy Communication, the two Thematic Strategies on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste, as well as in the Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP)/Sustainable Industry Policy (SIP) Action Plan. Reliable and scientifically robust life cycle methods are required to support the implementation, monitoring and assessment needs of these strategies and associated policies. This project analyses different life-cycle methods and provides an evaluation of their current suitability for assessing environmental impacts in micro level and macro level situations.JRC.DDG.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

The Development of Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounting

La Contabilità dei Flussi di Materia a livello di intero sistema economico (EW-MFA) costituisce una rappresentazione quantitativa dei rapporti che intercorrono fra l’ambiente naturale e l’economia di un paese, utile ai fini della valutazione della sostenibilità ecologica dello sviluppo. Tale disciplina si fonda sulla misurazione in termini fisici dei flussi di materiali attivati dall’economia. Gli indicatori derivati forniscono informazioni sull’evoluzione del metabolismo economico. La EW-MFA in Europa è promossa da Eurostat con il supporto di una Task Force, della quale l’Istat fa parte, che ha predisposto nel 2000 una Guida Metodologica. L’Istituto ha predisposto il Bilancio dei Flussi di Materia per il 1997 e una sequenza completa di Conti con una serie storica di indicatori 1980 - 2001

Resource Efficiency Indicators for Policy-Making. CEPS Working Document No. 415/November 2015

In the EU, resource efficiency has been high on the political agenda since 2011, when the European Commission first included it as one of the seven flagship initiatives in its Europe 2020 Strategy for “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. Resource efficiency is not only considered an environmental necessity, but also a political, economic and security opportunity. This paper first stresses the benefits and opportunities for the EU of improving its resource efficiency. It then explains the added value of the www.measuring-progress.eu web tool, which aims to improve the way policy-makers and others involved in the policy process can access, understand and use indicators for resource efficiency. It provides practical examples of relevant indicators in the form of the EU Resource Efficiency Scoreboard and a case study showing how the web tool established by NETGREEN can be used in practice. The paper concludes with a number of policy messages

DataM – Biomass estimates (v3): a new database to quantify biomass availability in the European Union

In 2012, the Communication of the European Commission "Innovating for Sustainable Growth: A Bioeconomy for Europe" (COM(2012)60) has put the development of the Bioeconomy at the forefront, as a way of reconciling economic growth and the green economy. But current official statistics fall short in providing relevant data to document this new concept. The establishment of the bioeconomy observatory (BISO) aims at filling this gap, compiling qualitative and quantitative data of relevance for policy makers. Considering that biomass is the raw material of the bioeconomy, JRC-IPTS together with the Nova- Institute has elaborated in the BISO framework a new database that quantifies the production and residues of biomass: DataM – Biomass estimates. Compared to existing databases like Eurostat-MFA (env_ac_mfa) and SERI Global material flows, this new database presents a higher level of disaggregation at the geographical and commodity level. Moreover, it allows gathering data either into fresh or dry matter. This database is stored in DataM, a JRC data management tool, and is accessible via two applications: the full version in datamintracomm for all European commission staff, and a public light version online datamweb. Apart from offering a quantification of crop biomass and residues at European level, these two applications also allows browsing data at member state and commodity level. A quantification of the European trade and biomass uses in biomass equivalent is foreseen in next versions, together with the integration of woody and aquatic product.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom