Indicator 8.4.1 Material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP

Material Footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP

Improve progressively, through 2030, global resource efficiency in consumption and production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, in accordance with the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, with developed countries taking the lead

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Definitions:

Material Footprint (MF) is the attribution of global material extraction to domestic final demand of a country. The total material footprint is the sum of the material footprint for biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores and non-metallic minerals.

Concepts:

Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) and MF need to be looked at in combination, as they cover the two aspects of the economy, production and consumption. The DMC reports the actual amount of material in an economy, MF the virtual amount required across the whole supply chain to service final demand. A country can, for instance, have a very high DMC because it has a large primary production sector for export or a very low DMC because it has outsourced most of the material intensive industrial process to other countries. The material footprint corrects for both phenomena.

Tonnes;

Kilograms per constant United States dollar;

Tonnes per capita.

The global estimation for MF is based on data available from different national and international datasets in the domain of material flow accounts, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining and energy statistics. International statistical sources for MF include the International Energy Agency, the United Nations Statistical Division, the United States Geological Survey, the Food and Agriculture Organization and COMTRADE databases.

National Statistical Offices

A footprint calculation uses the global Multi-Regional Input Output (MRIO) analysis, which compiles information from many countries national statistics to create a global multi-regional input-output table. This process requires a high level of computing capacity by supercomputers. Therefore, a limited number of countries can do the analysis on its own.

Material footprint by type of raw material (tonnes) is calculated as:

$MF=\mathrm{\ }{DE+\mathrm{\ }RME}_{IM}-\mathrm{\ }{RME}_{EX\mathrm{\ }}$

Where:

$MF$ – material footprint;

$DE$ – domestic extraction of materials;

${RME}_{IM}$ – raw material equivalent of imports;

${RME}_{EX}$ – raw material equivalents of exports.

For the attribution of the primary material needs of final demand a global, multi-regional input-output (MRIO) framework is employed. The attribution method based on I-O analytical tools is described in detail in Wiedmann et al. 2015. It is based on the Eora MRIO framework developed by the University of Sydney, Australia (Lenzen et al. 2013) which is an internationally well-established and the most detailed and reliable MRIO framework available to date.

Material footprint per capita, by type of raw material (tonnes), is calculated as:

$MF\mathrm{\ }per\mathrm{\ }capita=\mathrm{\ }\frac{MF}{Annual\mathrm{\ }average\mathrm{\ }population}$

Material footprint per unit of GDP, by type of raw material (kilograms per constant 2015 United States dollar), is calculated as:

$MF\mathrm{\ }per\mathrm{\ }GDP=\mathrm{\ }\frac{MF}{GDP\mathrm{\ }in\mathrm{\ }constant\mathrm{\ }2015\mathrm{\ }United\mathrm{\ }States\mathrm{\ }Dollars}$

2024-07-29

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

12.2.1, 8.4.2, 12.2.2

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