Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

e-mail contact: ESTAT-SDG-MONITORING@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 12 on ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns which is embedded in the European Commission’s Priorities under the 'European Green Deal'.

SDG 12 calls for a comprehensive set of actions from businesses, policy-makers, researchers and consumers to adapt to sustainable practices. It envisions sustainable production and consumption based on advanced technological capacity, resource efficiency and reduced global waste.

The Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) framework aims to improve the protection of human health and the environment through better identification and management of hazardous chemicals. The framework will be updated, supported by the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, which aims to improve the protection of the environment and our health from risks posed by chemicals and to support innovation for safe and sustainable chemicals.

This indicator measures the consumption of toxic chemicals, expressed in million tonnes. The consumption of chemicals is calculated as the sum of the production volumes (PRODCOM) and the net import volumes of the chemicals (COMEXT) according to the equation: Consumption = production + imports – exports.
The data on hazardous and non-hazardous chemicals show the total consumption of all chemicals. The two sub-categories of hazardous chemicals – hazardous to human health and hazardous to the environment – overlap by definition and as a result their sum is not equal to the total consumption of hazardous chemicals.

million tonnes
i. hazardous and non-hazardous - total
ii. hazardous total
iii. hazardous to health
iv. hazardous to environment

Calendar year

The indicator is produced according to the quality standards of European Statistics.

ESS (PRODCOM; COMEXT)

Data sources: Statistics on the production of manufactured goods (PRODCOM) and Statistics on international trade in goods (COMEXT) (ENV_CHMHAZ)

Data provider: Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

Every year

Indicator is updated annually.

T+1 year

New data points are disseminated within one year after the reference year.

Only EU aggregate

Data are presented only as EU aggregate; no individual EU Member States data are available.

Not Applicable

Not applicable, only EU aggregate

> 10 years

Presented time series starts in 2004.

> 4 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological break is longer than 4 data points.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Eurostat's annual monitoring report on Sustainable development in the EU (progress towards SDGs in the EU context).

see table  sdg_12_10

Eurostat dedicated section on SDGs: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/overview

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