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E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

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e-mail contact: ESTAT-RESOURCE-EFFICIENCY@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the Resource Efficiency Scoreboard. It is used to monitor progress towards a resource efficient Europe, complementing the lead indicator on the area of materials.

The 7th Environment Action Programme, the agreed framework for EU environment policy until 2020, has put forward three key objectives: (1) to protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital, (2) to turn the Union into a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy and (3) to safeguard the Union's citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and wellbeing. Four so-called ‘enablers’ will help Europe deliver on these goals: better implementation of legislation, better information by improving the knowledge base, more and wiser investment for environment and climate policy, full integration of environmental requirements and considerations into other policies. Two additional horizontal priority objectives complete the programme: to make the Union's cities more sustainable and to help the Union address international environmental and climate challenges more effectively, which are The Sustainable Consumption and Production and Sustainable Industrial Policy (SCP/SIP) Action Plan and The Circular Economy Package.

The indicator is defined as the total amount of material directly used in an economy and equals direct material input (DMI) minus exports. DMI measures the direct input of materials for the use in the economy. DMI equals domestic extraction (DE) plus imports. For the ‘per capita’ calculation of the indicator the average population is used (the arithmetic mean of the population on 1^st January of two consecutive years).

Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) is based on the Economy-wide Material Flow Accounts (EW-MFA). The theory of Economy-wide material flow accounts includes compilations of the overall material inputs into national economy, the changes of material stock within the economy and the material outputs to other economies or to the environment. EW-MFA covers all solid, gaseous, and liquid materials, except water and air. Water included in products is included.

Tonnes per capita.

Calendar year.

Indicator is produced according to the high-level quality standards of European Statistics. Details on accuracy can be found in the metadata of the source datasets (see link in "Related metadata").

ESS

Data source: European Statistical System (ESS).

Data provider: Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), based on data reported by the countries: Economy-wide material flow accounts (env_ac_mfa).

Every year

Indicator is updated annually.

T+1 year

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

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States plus Norway, Switzerland, Republic of North Macedonia, Albania, Turkey and Serbia.

The EU aggregate is also available.

All EU MS

Data are comparable between all EU Member States.

> 10 years

Presented time series (including EU aggregates) starts in 2000.

> 4 data points

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

Reports on the indicators of the Resource Efficiency Scoreboard.

A resource-efficient Europe (Communication COM(2011) 21).

A Roadmap towards a Resource Efficient Europe.

Eurostat, Statistics explained: Material flow accounts and resource productivity.

See table t2020_rl110

Eurostat dedicated section on Europe 2020 - Resource Efficient Europe.

Environmental statistics and accounts in Europe, Chapter ´Economy-wide material flows´.

Eurostat dedicated section on Material Flows and Resource Productivity.

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