Sustainable Use of Natural Resources

STUDIES: Follow-up of the Thematic Strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources

1.	Potential of the Ecological Footprint for monitoring environmental impacts from natural resource use
	Analysis of the potential of the Ecological Footprint and related assessment tools for use in the EU’s Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources

The Resource Strategy includes action to develop indicators for monitoring progress towards decoupling. The Commission aims to develop resource-specific indicators to evaluate how negative environmental impacts have been decoupled from resource use.

Ideally, indicators will be as aggregated as possible, easily understandable and built on existing work. This is likely to mean a “basket” of aggregated indicators. The ultimate aspiration is to have one or highly aggregated indicators that could be compared to the single economic indicator, GDP.

Abstract of the project

The Ecological Footprint is a useful indicator for assessing progress on the EU’s Resource Strategy and is unique among the 13 indicators reviewed in this study in its ability to relate resource use to the concept of carrying capacity. However, further improvements in data quality, methodologies and assumptions are required.

To effectively monitor EU progress on the Resource Strategy, additional indicators are required. This study recommends adoption of a basket consisting of four resource indicators: Ecological Footprint (EF), Environmentally-weighted Material Consumption (EMC), Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP) and Land and Ecosystem Accounts (LEAC).

The identified basket of indicators can be applied to monitor de-coupling of economic growth from environmental impacts as well as illustrating the effectiveness of a number of specific policies. Capturing the geographical distribution of pollution impacts and impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity requires the use of indicators additional to those in the basket.

• Executive summary (pdf~328K)
• Report (pdf~2,7Mb)

2.	Significant Natural Resource Trade Flows into the EU and their Environmental Impacts

The overall objective of the Resource Strategy is to reduce the negative environmental impacts generated by the use of natural resources in a growing economy (decoupling). To achieve this objective, the strategy includes action to:

Improve our understanding and knowledge of European resource use, its negative environmental impact and significance in the EU and globally.

This study put an emphasis on the global impact of European trade flows.

Abstract of the project:

European and other major economies depend on natural resources for their prosperity, but current patterns of increasing resource use are causing environmental degradation globally.  As for most developed regions, the EU is highly dependent on imported resources, and as such is in effect exporting its environmental impacts.

The study reviews the environmental impacts occurring outside the EU – in source countries and from transport to the EU – of 40 highly significant trade flows of raw and processed materials, ranging from agricultural commodities to metals and minerals to fossil fuels.

It discusses whether commodity groups have similar patterns of impacts and highlights how impacts can vary significantly between source countries for a variety of reasons, and points at several data gaps.  Therefore the study suggests a simple methodology for using the information compiled to identify resource trade flows having a more significant environmental impact and identifies four key areas for policy developments that could help to reduce these impacts.

• Executive summary (pdf~243Kb)
• Report on Significant Natural Resource Trade Flows into the EU (pdf~1,7Mb)
• Report on Environmental Impacts of Significant Natural Resource Trade Flows into the EU (pdf~2,5Mb)