Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Data extracted in April 2025.
Planned article update: June 2026.
This article is a part of a set of statistical articles, which are based on the Eurostat publication ’Sustainable development in the European Union — Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context — 2025 edition’. This report is the ninth edition of Eurostat’s series of monitoring reports on sustainable development, which provide a quantitative assessment of progress of the EU towards the SDGs in an EU context.
SDG 12 calls for a comprehensive set of actions from businesses, policymakers and consumers to adapt to sustainable practices. It envisions sustainable production and consumption based on advanced technological capacity, resource efficiency and reduced global waste.
Responsible consumption and production in the EU: overview and key trends
Consumption and production patterns have wide environmental and social impacts. Monitoring SDG 12 in an EU context focuses on developments in the areas of consumption patterns, the green economy, and waste generation and management. Overall, the EU’s progress towards this goal over the five-year period assessed has been largely favourable. Consumption patterns with regards to raw materials, chemicals, CO2 emissions from car fleets and energy productivity have shown positive developments in the EU, and the value added from the environmental goods and services sector has grown strongly. The picture on waste generation and management is mixed. While waste generation has reduced, circular use of materials is not growing fast enough in the EU to meet the 2030 target.
Consumption patterns
Economic growth improves people’s well-being but has long been associated with greater environmental impacts due to increased resource and energy consumption. Continuous growth in the consumption of finite resources is not sustainable. The EU’s long-term objective, as outlined in the 8th Environment Action Programme, is to build a well-being economy, where resource and energy efficiency are improved, and environmental and climate impacts associated with production and consumption are reduced.
The EU’s material footprint has decreased slightly compared with 2018
The material footprint, also referred to as raw material consumption (RMC), is the amount of materials used along the supply chains of goods and services that are finally consumed in a country. The indicator thus measures the materials extracted (both domestically and abroad) to produce the goods and services consumed by final users inside EU borders and estimates the volume of traded products — imports and exports — in raw material equivalents.
The EU’s material footprint grew steadily between 2000 and 2008 before being curtailed by the economic crisis. Following the recovery of the EU’s economy, raw material consumption resumed its upward trend, increasing by 8.4% between 2015 and 2019. In subsequent years, the EU’s material footprint fluctuated, with increases in 2021 and 2022 and decreases in 2020 and 2023, ultimately reaching 6.39 billion tonnes in 2023 – a 4.5% decline compared with the previous year. Over the most recent five-year period from 2018 to 2023, the EU’s material footprint fell by 2.8%. However, with a material footprint of 14.2 tonnes per capita, the EU’s raw material consumption level is still above global average, and further efforts might be required to meet the objectives of the European Green Deal, which calls for a reduction in environmental pressures alongside economic growth (also see the article on spillover effects).
The EU’s consumption footprint considerably transgresses planetary boundaries
The consumption footprint, based on a basket of products in five consumption areas, shows that EU consumption patterns considerably transgress several planetary boundaries. This means that the impact of consumption is higher than the Earth can sustainably support over the longer term, emphasising the need for further efforts to reduce consumption and achieve the EU’s policy goals. Overall, the EU’s consumption footprint transgressed planetary boundaries by 3.3 times in 2023. Although this represents a 2.4% improvement compared with 2018, the long-term trend remains negative, with an overall increase of 3.5% in boundary transgression since 2010. The EU’s transgression of planetary boundaries was particularly high for the impacts on climate change (by 8.0 times), particulate matter pollution (by 9.3 times) and freshwater ecotoxicity (by 10.1 times) [1]. Luxembourg, Ireland and Denmark had the highest consumption footprint in 2023, whereas Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary had the lowest.
The EU continues to depend heavily on imported fossil energy carriers and metal ores
Material import dependency captures the extent to which an economy relies on imports to meet its material needs. Material import dependency is calculated as the ratio of imports to direct material input (DMI), which is the sum of imports and domestic extraction. In 2023, imports accounted for 22.0% of the EU’s DMI. Import dependency was highest for fossil energy carriers, at 73.3% in 2023, followed by metal ores at 47.2%. The EU’s import dependency on fossil energy carriers has increased by 13.3 percentage points over the past decade (up from 60.0% in 2013), while dependency on metal ore imports has slightly decreased. In contrast, the EU is almost completely self-sufficient for non-metallic minerals, with an import dependency of only 2.7% in 2023 [2].
The EU’s self-sufficiency is especially relevant for critical raw materials (CRMs), which are raw materials of high importance to the EU economy and with a high supply risk. To address the challenge of ensuring reliable and unhindered access to certain raw materials, the European Commission presents a list of critical raw materials that is reviewed every three years. The CRM list from 2023 contains 34 materials; data on the EU’s self-sufficiency are available for eight of them. They show that in 2022, the EU’s self-sufficiency was highest for vanadium (100%), copper (52%) and fluorspar (40%). However, the EU economy was (almost) completely dependent on imports for borate (0% self-sufficiency), natural graphite (1%) and tantalum (1%) [3]. To ensure access to a secure and sustainable supply of the critical raw materials needed for the EU to meet its 2030 climate and digital objectives, the Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act was adopted in 2024. The act sets benchmarks for domestic consumption of raw materials to be met by 2030, for example at least 10% from domestic extraction and at least 25% from recycled materials.
Resource and energy productivity have increased in the EU over the five-year period assessed
Resource productivity [4] monitors how much output an economy produces per unit of material used and can provide insights into whether decoupling between the use of natural resources and economic growth is taking place. It is measured as the ratio of gross domestic product (GDP) to domestic material consumption (DMC). Between 2018 and 2023, the EU economy (in terms of GDP) grew by 6.3%, while DMC decreased by 2.9% over the same period. This resulted in a 9.2% increase in the EU’s resource productivity, from EUR 2.04 per kg of DMC in 2018 to EUR 2.23 per kg in 2023 [5].
Energy productivity [6] measures economic output (in terms of GDP) per unit of energy used. Observed trends for energy productivity are stronger than for resource productivity, due to larger decreases in energy consumption than in material use. Between 2018 and 2023, economic growth of 6.3% in the EU was accompanied by a 12.2% reduction in gross available energy (GAE) [7]. This resulted in an increase of energy productivity by 20.9%, from EUR 8.1 per kg of oil equivalent (kgoe) to EUR 9.8 per kgoe.
Consumption of hazardous chemicals has dropped by 25% since 2021
Many everyday products used by businesses and consumers are produced with the help of chemicals. This makes them a significant contributor to the EU economy, with chemical sales worth EUR 655 billion in 2023 [8]. The consumption of chemicals provides benefits to society but can also entail environmental and health risks. The level of risk depends on both the hazardous properties of chemicals and the exposure to them. The consumption volumes of industrial (manufactured) chemicals that are hazardous to human and environmental health can be used as a proxy for human exposure [9].
Between 2010 and 2021, the consumption of toxic chemicals in the EU remained relatively stable. However, a significant decline of 25.1% between 2021 and 2023 led to an overall reduction in consumption levels over both the short- and long-term periods. In 2023, the EU consumed 167.7 million tonnes of hazardous chemicals, which was 30.8% less than in 2008 and 24.1% less than in 2018.
Average CO2 emissions per km from new cars hit a record low, but sharp cuts are needed to meet the 2030 target
Road transport was responsible for almost a quarter of the EU’s total GHG emissions in 2022, with passenger cars responsible for over half of these emissions [10]. Reducing emissions from road transport requires a shift towards more sustainable mobility. To drive this transition, the EU has set targets for the fleet-wide average CO2 emissions of new passenger cars and vans, and new heavy duty vehicles registered each year.
Over the period 2018 to 2023, average CO2 emissions per km from new passenger cars registered in the EU fell by 26.1%, reaching the lowest level on record at 107.6 g/km in 2023. However, further reductions are needed to meet the EU targets of 93.6 g/km by 2025 and 49.5 g/km by 2030 [11]. From 2035 onwards, the target for CO2 emissions from new vehicles will be 0 g/km [12].
A key factor in achieving these targets is increasing the market share of zero-emission vehicles (including battery and fuel cell electric vehicles). For cars, this share rose from 1.0% in 2018 to 14.5% in 2023 in the EU. However, the share differs considerably between countries. Sweden reported the highest share with 38.6% in 2023, followed by Denmark with 36.1% and Finland with 33.8%. In contrast, zero-emission vehicles accounted for around 3% of newly registered passenger cars in Croatia, Slovakia and Czechia [13].
Green economy
An economy is considered green when it is resource efficient and low in carbon emissions while maintaining social justice, and therefore contributes to the achievement of a good life for all on a healthy planet. The EU is promoting the green economy through various policies such as the European Green Deal. The environmental goods and services sector (EGSS) produces the goods and services used in environmental protection and resource management activities, and thus helps to ‘green’ the economy. Such goods and services can include, for example, products to prevent, measure, control, limit, minimise or correct environmental damage and resource depletion. Increasing the market share of green technologies in the EU can also have important socio-economic benefits in terms of value added and employment [14].
The environmental goods and services sector has grown much faster than the overall economy
The EGSS gross value added in the EU has grown by 116% over the 15-year period assessed, from EUR 213.8 billion in 2007 to EUR 462.8 billion in 2022 (all numbers here are given in 2015 chain-linked prices). Growth in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors, along with increased spending on green infrastructure, are among the main drivers of this development [15]. In relation to the whole economy, the EGSS grew from 1.8% of EU GDP in 2007 to 3.3% in 2022. This indicates the sector grew much faster than other economic sectors. Notably, the sector's gross value added continued to grow in 2020 compared with the previous year, by 1.8%, when the EU’s GDP fell by 5.6% as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic [16]. Employment in the sector has also increased, in terms of full-time equivalent), by 88.3% since 2007. In 2022, the sector provided 6.7 million full-time equivalent jobs throughout the EU [17].
Waste generation and management
Production and consumption patterns characterised by products being made, used and then disposed of are not sustainable. Therefore, the EU aims to move towards a circular economy where materials and resources are kept in the economy for as long as possible (through repair, recycling and reuse) and waste is minimised or even prevented. Because waste contains resources, recycling can put these materials back into the economy and ensure they are used again to preserve the value embedded within them.
On average, EU citizens continue to produce around 5 000 kg of waste per year
In 2022, 2.2 billion tonnes of waste were generated in the EU by all economic activities and households together, corresponding to 4 991 kilograms (kg) of waste per inhabitant. Almost two-thirds (64.4% or 3.2 tonnes per inhabitant) of this waste was major mineral waste, including dredging spoils and contaminated soils that are mainly created in the mining and construction sectors [18]. Of the total waste, 5.3% was hazardous to health or the environment, corresponding to 266 kg per resident in 2022. The total amount of waste generated in the EU increased between 2008 and 2018 but fell by 7.9% in 2020, likely due to the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, by 2022, waste generation had risen again, increasing by 3.7% compared to 2020. Over the short-term period from 2018 to 2022, the total waste generated in the EU decreased by 4.5%, corresponding to a 4.7% reduction in waste generated per EU inhabitant during this time.
In 2022, 795 million tonnes of waste, excluding major mineral waste, was generated in the EU. From this amount, 216 million tonnes were recorded for waste and water services, followed by households (193 million tonnes) and manufacturing activities (166 million tonnes) [19]. In 2022, food waste accounted for 58 million tonnes in the EU. More than half (53%) of food waste was generated by household activities, followed by the manufacture of food products and beverages (18%) [20].
The EU is not on track to reach its target for circular material use
When not managed sustainably, waste has a huge impact on the environment, causing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and significantly lowering the efficient use of materials [21]. Recycling waste and feeding it back into the economy as secondary raw materials is crucial for reducing the EU’s demand for primary raw materials, and relies heavily on improved waste management systems [22]. Between 2008 and 2023, the EU circular material use (CMU) rate — the share of used materials derived from collected waste — increased from 9.1% to 11.8%. Since 2016, however, the CMU rate has stagnated, meaning the EU will need to make stronger progress in the next few years to meet its goal of doubling the materials it uses from collected waste by 2030 to 22.4%.
In 2022, 56% of waste in the EU (excluding major mineral wastes) was recycled [23]. The difference between this relatively high end-of-life recycling rate and the CMU rate (11.8% in 2023) may seem surprising. However, the comparatively low degree of circularity in the EU can be attributed to three structural barriers. First, a large fraction of the materials extracted, in particular minerals, is used to build and maintain buildings, infrastructure and other long-life goods and is not readily available for recycling. The second barrier is the large amount of materials used to generate energy. For these materials, in particular for fossil fuels, closing the loop is hardly possible and the high share of these materials keeps the degree of circularity low [24]. Another barrier is that in many cases, despite the relatively high recycling rate, secondary (recycled) raw materials often are not of sufficient quality to be used in new products (for example, in construction products, packaging or transport) and therefore lack market demand.
Main indicators
Material footprint
The material footprint, also referred to as raw material consumption (RMC), represents the demand for the extraction of materials (minerals, metal ore, biomass and fossil energy materials) induced by consumption of goods and services within a geographical reference area. Data for material footprints stem from material flow accounts, which model the flows of natural resources from the environment into the economy. They include domestic extraction of materials measured in tonnes of gross material (for example, gross ore or gross harvest) as well as estimated imports and exports of the raw material equivalents of the products traded (domestic and abroad extraction required to produce the traded products). RMC thus measures the amount of extraction needed to produce the goods demanded by final users in the geographical reference area, irrespective of where in the world the material extraction took place.

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_21) and (env_ac_rme)

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_21)
Consumption footprint
The consumption footprint is a set of 16 life cycle assessment (LCA)-based indicators that assess the environmental impacts of EU and its Member States consumption by combining data on consumption intensity and environmental impacts of representative products [25]. It is based on the combination of: (a) the emissions to air, soil and water, as well as the resources used along the life cycle of around 165 representative products, belonging to five areas of consumption (food, mobility, housing, household goods, and appliances), (b) the consumption intensities of those products, which are calculated based on consumption statistics, and (c) the Environmental Footprint (EF) impact assessment method, which translates emissions and resource consumption into 16 potential environmental impacts that can be aggregated into a single score. The EF impact indicators can be compared with a set of thresholds based on the Planetary Boundaries framework [26].

Note: y-axis does not start at 0.
Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_31)

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_31)
Consumption of hazardous 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 and the net import volumes of the chemicals according to the equation: consumption = production + imports – exports. 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.

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_10)
Gross value added in the environmental goods and services sector
The environmental goods and services sector (EGSS) is defined as that part of a country’s economy that is engaged in producing the goods and services used in environmental protection and resource management activities either domestically or abroad. Gross value added in EGSS represents the contribution of the environmental goods and services sector to (GDP) and is defined as the difference between the value of the sector’s output and intermediate consumption.

Note: y-axis does not start at 0.
Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_61) and (nama_10_gdp)

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_61)
Circular material use rate
The circular material use rate (CMU) measures the share of material recovered and fed back into the economy in overall material use. The CMU is defined as the ratio of the circular use of materials to the overall material use. The overall material use is measured by summing up the aggregate domestic material consumption (DMC) and the circular use of materials. DMC is defined in economy-wide material flow accounts. The circular use of materials is approximated by the amount of waste recycled in domestic recovery plants minus imported waste destined for recovery plus exported waste destined for recovery abroad. A higher CMU rate value means more secondary materials are being substituted for primary raw materials, thus reducing the environmental impacts of extracting primary material.

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_41)

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_41)
Generation of waste
This indicator is defined as all waste generated in a country. It covers waste generated by industrial production (including the waste management sector itself) and by households. Major mineral wastes, dredging spoils and soils are included. This leads to high quantities of waste in some countries with substantial economic activities such as mining and construction.

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_51)

Source: Eurostat (sdg_12_51)
Footnotes
- ↑ Source: JRC (cei_gsr010)
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (env_ac_mid)
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (cei_gsr020). Copper does not meet the CRM threshold but is included on the CRM list as strategic raw material in line with the Critical Raw Materials Act.
- ↑ Resource productivity is defined as GDP per unit of domestic material consumption (DMC), measured in EUR per kilogram. Part of these materials is directly consumed by households, which means they are not used as an input to production activities. Thus, resource productivity is not directly comparable to concepts such as labour or capital productivity.
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (env_ac_rp), (env_ac_mfa)and (nama_10_gdp).
- ↑ Energy productivity is defined as GDP per unit of gross inland energy consumption, measured in EUR per kg of oil equivalent. Part of the energy considered is consumed by households, which means it is not used as an input to production activities. Thus, energy productivity is not directly comparable to concepts such as labour or capital productivity. Note that the indicator's inverse is energy intensity.
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (nama_10_gdp) and (nrg_bal_s).
- ↑ The European Chemical Industry Council (2023), CEFIC Facts and Figures 2023.
- ↑ European Environment Agency (2019), Consumption of hazardous chemicals.
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (env_air_gge).
- ↑ European Commission (2023), Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/1623 of 3 August 2023 specifying the values relating to the performance of manufacturers and pools of manufacturers of new passenger cars and new light commercial vehicles for the calendar year 2021 and the values to be used for the calculation of the specific emission targets from 2025 onwards.
- ↑ Please note that the EU targets also cover vehicles registered in Norway and Iceland, while those countries are not included in the emission values quoted, which relate to EU-27.
- ↑ Source: Eurostat and European Alternative Fuels Observatory (road_eqr_zevpc).
- ↑ European Environment Agency (2019), Environmental Goods and Services Sector: employment and value added.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (nama_10_gdp).
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (env_ac_egss1).
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (env_wasgen).
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (env_wasfw).
- ↑ European Commission (2010), Being wise with waste: the EU’s approach to waste management, Publication Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
- ↑ European Commission (2024), Circular economy.
- ↑ Source: Eurostat (env_wasoper)
- ↑ Haas, W., Krausmann, F., Wiedenhofer, D., Heinz, M. (2015), How Circular is the Global Economy?: An Assessment of Material Flows, Waste Production, and Recycling in the European Union and the World in 2005, Journal of Industrial Ecology, October 2015, Vol.19(5), 765-777.
- ↑ Sanye Mengual, E. and Sala, S. (2023), Consumption Footprint and Domestic Footprint: Assessing the environmental impacts of EU consumption and production, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
- ↑ Sala, S., Crenna, E., Secchi, M., Sanyé-Mengual, E. (2020), Environmental sustainability of European production and consumption assessed against planetary boundaries, Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 269, 110686.
Explore further
Other articles
Database
Thematic section
Publications
Further reading on responsible consumption and production
- EEA (2025), Preventing waste in Europe - Progress and challenges, with a focus on food waste.
- EEA (2024), Accelerating the circular economy in Europe: State and outlook 2024.
- EEA (2024), Capturing the climate change mitigation benefits of circular economy and waste sector policies and measures.
- EEA (2024), From data to decisions: material footprints in European policy making.
- EEA (2023), Many EU Member States not on track to meet recycling targets for municipal waste and packaging waste.
- EEA (2023), Pathways to circular plastics in Europe: Good examples from countries, business and citizens.
- EEA (2023), The European biomass puzzle: Challenges, opportunities and trade-offs around biomass production and use in the EU.
- EEA (2019), The European environment — state and outlook 2020. Chapter 9 – Waste and resources in a circular economy.
- Circle Economy (2024), The Circularity Gap Report 2024, Circle Economy, Amsterdam.
- JRC (2025), Consumption Footprint and Domestic Footprint Outlook Report 2025.
- UNEP (2024), Global Resources Outlook 2024: Bend the Trend – Pathways to a liveable planet as resource use spikes, International Resource Panel, Nairobi.
- United Nations Environment Programme (2019), Global Chemicals Outlook II. From Legacies to Innovative Solutions: Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Methodology
More detailed information on EU SDG indicators for monitoring of progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as indicator relevance, definitions, methodological notes, background and potential linkages can be found in the introduction as well as in Annex II of the publication ’Sustainable development in the European Union — Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context — 2025 edition’.
External links
Further data sources on responsible consumption and production