Sustainability indicators from resource flow trends in the Philippines

Abstract

The topics of resource efficiency, pollution reduction and waste minimization have become important global policy goals and have gained prominence in developing countries in the context of the new Sustainable Development Goals. These pose challenges to the policy community in the formulation of plausible and ambitious targets for resource use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste. To bridge this gap, we utilize the material flow indicators derived from standard MFA methodology to show trends in material use, waste and emissions in the Philippines. We find that direct material inputs in the Philippines grew at 2.4% yearly, from 293 million tonnes in 1980 to 661 million tonnes in 2014. Domestic processed output, or materials released to environment has tripled from 96 million tonnes in 1980 to 260 million tonnes in 2014, with 89% as emission to air. The environmental Kuznets curve shows that the growing economy entails greater pressure to the environment. Net additions to stock grew slower than waste and emissions which is testament of a lack of infrastructure investment in the Philippines. Such a comprehensive material flow account responds to the information requirements of a modern environmental policy stance that looks at economy and environment simultaneously and has not previously been available. These findings call for policies to increase resource efficiency and improvement on recycling system, strict implementation of policies related to solid wastes management, mitigating air emission, and wastewater. The new dataset also shows slow progress in achieving SDG targets 8.4, 12.2 and 12.5.