Resource Use in European Countries - An estimate of materials

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MB

and waste streams in the Community, including imports and

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stron

exports using the instrument of material flow analysis

5153

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European Topic Centre on Waste and Material Flows

2003

rok

Contents

Contents. 3

Summary 8

1. Introduction and Objectives 12

2. Identifying Criteria for Priority Setting for Sustainable Resource Management . 14

2.1. Relating the use of natural resources to the size and composition of the “Industrial

Metabolism”15

2.2. Management rules.17

2.3. Environmental impacts induced by material flows and their causal links .18

3. Methodology: Material Flow Accounting (MFA) 21

3.1. Economy-wide MFA21

3.2. Main MFA indicators .23

3.3. Data sources27

4. Material Flow Accounts for the European Union 30

4.1. Overview – economy-wide material balance and aggregate MFA indicators for EU. 31

4.1.1. Economy-wide material balance .31

4.1.2. DMI – Direct Material Input .32

4.1.3. DMC – Direct Material Consumption 34

4.1.4. TMR – Total Material Requirement.35

4.1.5. PTB – Physical Trade Balance .38

4.2. Fossil fuels.40

4.3. Metals and industrial minerals.43

4.4. Construction minerals 48

4.5. Biomass .49

4.6. Total outputs, waste streams and principal emissions to the environment 51

4.7. Physical growth of the EU economy (net additions to stock) including impacts on land use52

4.8. De-coupling, macro-economic resource productivities .53

4.9. On the sectoral attribution of resource flows54

4.9.1. Sectoral attribution of domestically extracted resources 55

4.9.2. Attribution of foreign material inputs (imports and associated hidden flows) .56

5. Material Flow Accounts for EU-Accession Countries . 58

5.1. Overview – Direct Material Input (DMI) for the EU Accession Countries (AC-13) 58

5.2. Domestic extraction of used raw materials (fossil fuels, minerals, and biomass) 59

5.3. Imports of raw materials, semi-manufactures, and final goods 61

5.4. Benchmark comparison with average EU-15 flows 61

6. Interpretation and Assessment.64

6.1. Fossil fuels 66

6.1.1. Main environmental problems associated with fossil fuels. 66

6.1.2. Dominant interfaces for interaction of fossil fuels with environment 66

6.1.3. Problematic flows of fossil fuels 66

6.1.4. Main use of fossil fuels (driving forces) and EU share on world-wide use. 66

6.1.5. Main options to reduce environmental implications of the use of fossil fuels. 67

6.2. Metals. 67

6.2.1. Main environmental problems associated with metals. 67

6.2.2. Dominant interfaces for interaction of metals with environment. 68

6.2.3. Problematic flows of metals 68

6.2.4. Main use of metals (driving forces) 68

6.2.5. EU share on world-wide metal use. 71

6.2.6. Main options to reduce environmental implications of the use of metals. 71

6.3. Industrial minerals 72

6.3.1. Main environmental problems associated with industrial minerals 72

6.3.2. Dominant interfaces for interaction of industrial minerals with environment 72

6.3.3. Problematic flows of industrial minerals . 72

6.3.4. Main use of industrial minerals (driving forces) and EU share on world-wide use 72

6.3.5. Main options to reduce environmental implications of the use of industrial minerals73

6.4. Construction minerals . 74

6.4.1. Main environmental problems associated with construction minerals . 74

6.4.2. Dominant interfaces for interaction of construction minerals with environment. 74

6.4.3. Problematic flows of construction minerals 74

6.4.4. Main use of construction minerals (driving forces) and EU share on world-wide use75

6.4.5. Main options to reduce environmental implications of the use of construction minerals 75

6.5. Biomass. 75

6.5.1. Main environmental problems associated with biomass 75

6.5.2. Dominant interfaces for interaction of biomass with environment 76

6.5.3. Problematic biomass flows . 76

6.5.4. Main use of biomass (driving forces) and EU share on world-wide use 76

6.5.5. Main options to reduce environmental implications of the use of biomass 76

6.5.6. Sustaining the supply: non-renewables versus renewables 77

7. Conclusions and Recommendations .79

References .82

Technical Annex 86