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E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

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e-mail contact: ESTAT-CIRCULAR-ECONOMY@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the Circular Economy indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards a circular economy on the thematic area of 'Global sustainability and resilience'.

Raw materials are essential for the functioning of the EU's economy. A wide variety of industrial sectors depend on the secure supply of raw materials, typically in a diversified mix of domestic extraction, recycling and imports. The EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy targets specific actions in the area of critical raw materials. Critical raw materials are those that are of high economic importance for the EU and vulnerable to supply disruption. In certain cases, their extraction also causes significant environmental impacts, and so their critical economic importance can also have significant environmental policy implications. Increasing the recovery of critical raw materials is one of the key challenges to be addressed in the move to a more circular economy.

The composite indicator provides the weighted average as a benchmark, and interesting insights into the differences between materials (viz., for certain critical raw materials the EU is much more self-sufficient than for others) at the disaggregated level of data for each type of material.

The Self-sufficiency (SS) indicator measures how much the EU is independent from the rest of the world for several raw materials.

The indicator has been calculated based on actual yearly quantity data for domestic production, exports and imports, using the formula: Self-sufficiency = 1 - (net) Import Reliance, where Import Reliance (IR) is defined in the EU Critical Raw Materials methodology as Net imports / (Net imports +Domestic Production).

The computations of Self-sufficiency indicator have been conducted at the first two stages of the value chain: extraction (E) and processing (P) for most of the materials.

The values of Self-sufficiency indicator could range from 0 to 100%, in the same interval as import reliance, since any value outside this range can’t be interpreted (there is no meaning of a negative self-sufficiency, neither to be more than 100% self-sufficient in a specific material).

The indicator provides insights in the differences between materials: for certain raw materials the EU is more self-sufficient than for others. The data source allows for a disaggregation per material. Due to increasing demand for certain materials (such as silicon, copper, tellurium and indium), even if 100% were recycled, the EU would still not be self-sufficient. 

The indicator should be considered in a broader context considering potential disruption of supply in the context of economically sensitive key areas. Self-sufficiency for raw materials, in combination with an analysis of the source countries for these materials, can help assessing supply risks for these materials.

Percentage.

Calendar year.

Indicator from non-ESS source. For assessment of accuracy please refer to the original source (see link to external data source and metadata in "Annexes").

EC -Joint Research Center (JRC)

The data used as the inputs to build the self-sufficiency indicator are:

Production data, taken from the specialised international data providers: World Mining Data (WMD) and BGS (British Geological Survey). In these sources, production is available by material and country. Data at EU level has been computed by summing-up the production data of individual member states.

Trade data, taken from COMEXT (ESTAT) – the quantity of imports and exports for each raw material.At EU level it is used the extra-EU trade, while for the computation of the indicator at member state level, the individual country imports and exports data are used.

Every 3+ years

Indicator is updated every 3 years. 

The European Commission has committed to updating the list of Critical Raw Materials every 3 years (COM (2011) 25).

> T+2 years

New data points are disseminated within three years after the reference year.

Only EU aggregate

Data are presented for European aggregates:

 European Union - 27 countries (from 2020) [EU27_2020]

 European Union - 28 countries (2013-2020) [EU28] 

Not Applicable

EU aggregate. No data available by Member State.

5 to 10 years

Data are available starting with the year 2011, the last reference year is 2018.

> 4 data points

Data are comparable over time, since the methodology used to calculate the values is the same.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Commission Staff Working Document.

See table cei_gsr020

Eurostat dedicated section on Circular Economy.

DG GROW. Critical raw materials.

DG ENV, Implementation of the Circular Economy Action Plan.

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