Domestic Material Consumption Research Articles

Energy and material flow management to improve EU productivity

In this study, we consider EU 28 countries’ production process that generates the single output real GDP per capita by using three inputs: capital stock, number of persons engaged and per capita use of primary energy before its transformation to other end-use fuels. In this context we study the drivers of total factor productivity change (TFPCH) in decision making units (DMUs) (in our case EU 28 countries). Taking into consideration that production technology is assumed to be homogeneous across DMUs, we study the effects of multiple explanatory variables (fossil fuel energy consumption, renewable energy consumption, CO2 emissions, domestic material consumption and recycled municipal waste) on TFPCH and its first component — technical efficiency change (TEC)). Then, we assume variable returns to scale and adopt the output-oriented Farrell efficiency measure (TE) as the dependent variable in a second stage analysis. To interpret the results qualitatively and find the determinants of DMUs’ productivity, we examine the estimated mean marginal effects of the above multiple explanatory variables, on TE, by applying the Simar and Wilson’s algorithms. Besides algorithm I and algorithm II, we also employ tobit and truncated regressions for comparison. A second stage empirical analysis reveals that fossil fuels (Jevons Paradox), renewable energy consumption, biomass and recycled municipal waste are positively related to the VRS efficiency scores of DMUs at the 10% level of significance, while CO2 emissions are negatively related. The overall picture is somewhat different according to the size of the country and therefore heterogeneity.

Decoupling Economic Growth from Fossil Fuel Use—Evidence from 141 Countries in the 25-Year Perspective

This study offers an in-depth analysis of the decoupling of economic growth from fossil fuel use in 141 countries over the last 25 years. The study is based on the Tapio decoupling approach, and two methods of measuring fossil fuel use, i.e., domestic material consumption (DMC) and material footprint (MF), are applied. Groups of countries with similar decoupling patterns are identified through the k-medoids method. Next, the relationship between these patterns and the level of countries’ development is examined. The results reveal that using different measures of fossil fuel use yields different processes of decoupling economic growth from fossil fuel use. In particular, when the DMC indicator is considered, relative decoupling is observed in most analysed cases. When the MF indicator is applied, the decoupling states of individual countries change more frequently. Finally, in highly developed countries, absolute decoupling is frequently observed, although only when the DMC indicator is used.

Synergies and Trade-offs among Sustainable Development Goals: The Case of Spain

The United Nations plans have marked global sustainable development for more than two decades. Most of the developed and developing countries have adopted these plans to achieve the Agenda 2030, currently formed by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The analysis of the interactions between the SDGs is a growing area in research and of interest for governments. However, studies on how positive correlations can improve deteriorated goals are scarce for countries to date. This study aims at filling this gap by finding and quantifying the synergies and trade-offs among the SDGs of Spain. During the years 2000–2019, almost 80% of the SDG targets had significant interactions, either positive (synergy) or negative (trade-off). SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 5 (gender Equality) and SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) contained the largest number of positive interactions, more than 60% in all of them. SDG 3 (good health and wellbeing) was strongly linked with indicators from SDG 4 (quality education) and also SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation). Furthermore, indicators from SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) shared a high correlation with the ones from SGD 12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG 15 (life on land). SDG 1 (no poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 6 (clean water and sanitation), 8 (decent work and economic growth) and 11 (sustainable cities and communities) had the slowest evolution during the years 2000–2019, showing contractions in some instances. We developed a regression model to assess the influence that selected targets have had on a less evolved target (target 8.6—proportion of youth not in education, employment or training). We managed to clarify high influence from target 1.3 (unemployment compensations), target 8.4 (domestic material consumption) and target 10.5 (non-performing loans) on the dependent variable. Identifying numerical dependencies between the SDGs may help nations to develop a roadmap where targets work as cogwheel towards achieving the Agenda 2030.

Is Resource Inefficiency Self-Reinforcing? Evidence From the European Union

Domestic material consumption (DMC) remains a significant source of climate change as identified within the sustainable development goal twelve (SDG12) by the United Nations. This makes the need to further explore the DMC growth nexus more pertinent. Using key material indicators and macroeconomic variables from the European Union (EU-28), this study explored the dynamics of the relationship between material consumption and economic growth, using the Granger-type autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) panel estimation technique and a data period from 2007-2017. This enabled a comparison of performance between low resource efficiency economy against top performers, in reference to SDG12 and resource productivity performance in the EU-28 member states. Findings show that countries with high levels of domestic material consumption, as proxied by the resource productivity index, tend to have a relatively lower impact of material use on economic performance, which can lead to a dangerous cycle of inefficiency.

Domestic material consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the EU‐28 countries: Implications for environmental sustainability targets

AbstractIn spite of the achievements of the European Union (EU) member countries with respect to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) 2030 targets, the member countries have reportedly under‐performed in a specific drive towards the SDG 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production [SCP]). In advancing evidence to this insight, the current study examines the role of domestic material consumption, income and renewable energy utilisation in the panel of the EU‐28 environmental sustainability targets. In specific, we find that domestic material consumption worsens the bloc's environmental quality in both the immediate and long term. Although an increase in per capita income level aids environmental sustainability in the long term, the short‐run effect shows that per capita income growth triggers greenhouse gas emissions. The study further reveals that while cleaner energy development (renewables) improves the countries' environmental sustainability in both the short and long run, the level of real income is yet detrimental to environmental quality. Moreover, consumption of domestic materials, the share of renewable energy utilisation and real income contribute to greenhouse gas emissions in countries like Czech Republic, Lithuania and Malta. Thus, this study suggests country‐specific policies that primarily target domestic consumption and cleaner energy development to achieve environmental sustainability targets among the EU member states.

Machine Learning Approaches for Municipal Solid Waste Generation Forecasting

Municipal solid waste (MSW) generation forecasting can be considered as the biggest challenge of integrated solid waste management systems, particularly for developing countries where data collection is limited. In this study, three different machine learning algorithms, namely backpropagation neural network (BPNN), support vector regression (SVR), and general regression neural network, were applied for different countries. Comparative evaluation of these different algorithms based on gross domestic product, domestic material consumption, and resource productivity were given through the optimum solution. Moreover, the algorithms were tested for the case of Turkey. The results of this study are expected to represent a general outline for stakeholders of Turkey for improving MSW management strategies all over the country, and these results can be extended to similar developing countries across the world. It can be concluded that BPNN and SVR methods can be applied successfully for the case of Turkey and other countries across the world to predict the MSW generation, whereas BPNN is slightly better. If the input and output variables are identified well, machine learning approaches can give a good projection for waste generation, and this projection can be utilized for different countries. Furthermore, the developing countries with missing data can develop more realistic strategies for MSW management by not relying solely on international databases such as Eurostat to forecast MSW generation.

What drives material use in the EU? Evidence from club convergence and decomposition analysis on domestic material consumption and material footprint

This study investigates the main driving forces behind material use of the EU in the case of heterogeneity between member states with paying special attention to the comparison of domestic material consumption (DMC) with material footprint (MF). To this end, we first classify countries into several clubs based on time-varying behavior of two material use indicators and analyse the degree of heterogeneity between the EU countries. Secondly, we identify main driving forces behind DMC and MF changes using the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition analysis and explore the specific characteristics of material use for each club. The empirical results suggest that (i) the EU member states do not converge to a unique steady state level and there are multiple equilibria for both indicators. However, the number of clubs for per capita DMC is greater than per capita MF; (ii) the increase in material use due to the income effect is the largest, followed by the population effect. While the structural effect has an inhibiting effect for both DMC and MF, the material intensity effect differs depending on the indicator used; (iii) the magnitude of effects significantly varies between clubs. Our findings indicate the requirement of consumption based climate mitigation tools. In this regard, carbon border adjustment and/or consumption charges on material use could be effective market based instruments.

The metabolic transition of material use and carbon emissions in economically growing Asia: Evidence from 1971 to 2016.

The efficient consumption of material and energy resources, with minimal carbon emissions and maximum economic output, is globally significant. This study examines the metabolic transition of resource use and CO2 emissions in nine of the largest economies of East, South, and Southeast Asia. A data envelopment model has been developed to assess the efficiency of domestic material consumption and CO2 emissions during 1971-2016 at three levels of analysis. The single-country analysis resultsreveal that China has made the most rapid efficiency transformation during 1971-2016 followed by Japan and South Korea, while the rest of the countries in South and Southeast Asia have not illustrated significant improvements. Results from the analysis of socio-economically grouped countries show that Japan and Bangladesh are the relatively efficient economies in East and South Asia, respectively. Among Southeast Asian countries, both Indonesia and Malaysia were found to be efficient. Based on the regional analysis comparing all nine countries, Japan has consistently remained a relatively efficient economy while China-despite rapid improvements-remains a relatively inefficient economy. To this end, Japan had the lowest material and CO2 intensities compared to all other countries. Based on our results, technological advancement, industry structure, and scale of traded goods and services were found to have a significant impact (the impact of per capita income was less pronounced) on a country's effective resource utilization and carbon mitigation.

Analysis of Global Trends on Resource Productivity and Its Promotion Strategy

Management of resource productivity is important for the reduction of natural resources and energy consumption. This is closely linked to circular economy which has recently been stressed worldwidely. Resource productivity is a key indicator which is to be managed in various industry sectors. Especially Korea which is heavily dependent on the natural resources import from overseas needs to give attention to this point. Nevertheless resource productivity related domestic researches and policies are extremely rare. This paper thus presents trends on resources productivities and their management policies of European countries and OECD G7 countries compared to the situation of Korea. In addition, the decoupling phenomenon of DMC (domestic material consumption) and GDP of Europe is analyzed and the resource productivity promotion strategy of Korea is proposed.

Stock-flow relations in the socio-economic metabolism of the United Kingdom 1800–2017

Material stocks are the physical basis of production and consumption and shape the dynamics of resource use and socio-economic outcomes. We present an inflow-driven, long-term estimation of material stocks for the United Kingdom, covering 12 major materials from 1800 to 2017. We find the trajectory of the UK's stocks characterized by slow increases during the 19th century, followed by rapid growth and a slowdown in recent years. After a slump following the 2007/8 financial crisis, stock growth again accelerated to currently ∼1% per year. Per capita stocks barely increased during the 19th century. Proliferation far beyond population growth only started after WWI and pushed stocks to currently ∼272 tons/capita. Since WWI, material requirements for stock growth constituted a large share of domestic material consumption, indicating the importance of stock stabilization for reducing the size of societies’ metabolism. We find that materials required for stock buildup were increasingly imported, while more and more end-of-life metals and paper were exported. Over the past 60 years, energy and CO2 efficiency of stock operation and production improved, but absolute savings were curtailed by ongoing stock expansion. Material stocks grew tightly coupled to GDP, since ∼1995 showing first signs of relative decoupling. Alongside more than a doubling of per capita stocks from 1961 to 2005, life expectancy increased constantly but slowly. Interestingly, the indicator ‘life satisfaction’ remained fairly constant over that period. Directly targeting material stocks, for efficiency improvements but also limiting their ongoing expansion, is a crucial lever towards more sustainable resource use in the UK.

Causal effect of environmental factors, economic indicators and domestic material consumption using frequency domain causality test

Economic growth-induced climate change is multifaceted with different dimensions, hence, requires scientific scrutiny. Herein, an assessment of the causal effect of environmental factors, economic assessment and domestic material consumption is presented. We utilized the novel Breitung-Candelon spectral Granger-causality aka frequency domain causality and parameter stability tests to account for the direction of causality. These tests, a resemblance to machine learning algorithm were required to examine the sequential shock of unobserved features of series not reported in traditional Granger-causality tests. The empirical results found a short-run relationship between renewables and economic growth, suggesting a strong effect of wealth on renewable energy consumption. We confirmed a strong and long-term metallurgical coal-controlled metal footprint through steelmaking, and coal-driven energy-based economic structure. The feedback hypothesis was validated between biomass consumption and economic growth. There was evidence that metal ore consumption predicts economic growth, income level and renewable energy consumption while it causes ambient air pollution. From a policy perspective, the study demonstrates that the diversification of the energy mix with renewable energy sources will reduce fossil fuel footprint.

Investigating the non-linear effects of globalization on material consumption in the EU countries: Evidence from PSTR estimation

The efficient and sustainable use of resources has gained great importance in combating environmental threats and in keeping humanity out of resource scarcity. An effective way of monitoring and analyzing the state of ecological assets for sustainable resource policy is to understand the triggers of material consumption. To this end, this study follows a STIRPAT approach to reveal how domestic material consumption reacts to economic growth/income level, total factor productivity, human capital, population and globalization. Considering the transition effects of globalization, the study performs panel smooth transition regression on yearly data covering the 2000–2017 period for the 28 EU countries. Empirical results indicate that economic growth, total factor productivity and population increase material consumption when globalization level is below the threshold level. However, human capital decreases material usage. On the other hand, higher levels of globalization help to decrease material consumption and thus contribute to sustainable resource management.

Comparing European countries' performances in the transition towards the Circular Economy

The aim of the present research is to compare the performances of the 28 EU Member States in the period 2006–2016 in order to assess their progress towards the achievement of circular economy objectives. This study overviews the conceptual background, that informed the implemented measures so as to create an accumulation of knowledge which focuses on the one hand on “Reduction, Reuse, Recycling” actions, and on the other hand on the main impact areas of circular economy activities. Furthermore, the evaluation of these actions and their impacts were carried out correlating Growth Domestic Products in Purchasing Power Standards data with quantitative indicators: Produced Municipal Waste – PMW, Produced Food Waste – PFW, Municipal Waste Recycling rate – MWRr, Domestic Material Consumption - DMC, Production Material Reuse rate – PMRr, Market rate of Recyclable Raw Materials – MrRRM. These indicators allow assessing the degree of transition achieved by the member states in the implementation of circular economy. The analysis shows that different strategies were adopted by the 28 EU Member States and that only a few of these could be considered effective in meeting the challenges of the circular economy in European Union.

Monitoring domestic material consumption at lower territorial levels: A novel data downscaling method

AbstractThe availability of harmonized and granular information is critical for the design of place‐sensitive policies toward more sustainable economies. However, accessibility to disaggregated data at subnational levels remains an exception in many geographies and policy domains. In this article, we develop a novel three‐stage—specification, optimization, extrapolation (SOE)—econometric approach to infer harmonized regional level estimates from broadly available socioeconomic data. The approach is tested by estimating domestic material consumption (DMC) in more than 280 European regions (at NUTS 2 level). Unlike previous methods based on similar econometric techniques, our method makes explicit the socio‐metabolic profiles of subnational territories by estimating and applying country‐specific elasticities. Our DMC estimates are consistent with those obtained by ad hoc material flow studies that could be accessed for a sample of regions. The SOE method presented in this paper provides decision‐makers with a powerful tool to explore socio‐metabolic profiles at subnational level and therefore to understand the potential effects of policies aimed at supporting circular economy transitions at such levels. The method can also be adapted with relative ease to support policy designs in other policy areas challenged by severe data scarcity.

Bioeconomic transition?: Projecting consumption‐based biomass and fossil material flows to 2050

AbstractCountries are responding to unsustainable resource extraction, rising emissions, and increasing waste streams by implementing national bioeconomy strategies. Assuming that the purpose of a bioeconomy is to replace fossil use by biogenic resource use, we estimate biomass and fossil raw material consumption (RMC) by applying multiregional input–output methodology for middle and high income countries. Next, we use a panel fixed effects model to explain RMC with economically active population, urban population, GDP, land cover, and fossil/biomass domestic material consumption. With this model, we project RMC under five Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios up to 2050. The projections show an increase in per capita biomass RMC between 2010 and 2050, accompanied by—in many cases pronounced—per capita growth of fossil RMC across most of the countries and scenarios. We conclude that, if GDP continues to drive fossil RMC at its current magnitude, upcoming conditions are likely to counteract a potential bioeconomic transition and increase, instead of decrease, fossil RMC. Thus, increasing biomass use will not necessarily lead to reduced fossil resource consumption. When considering the relative scarcity of biomass, land and water, more focus needs to be placed on the relevance of technological bio‐based innovations in the reconfiguration of RMC drivers.

Friends or foes? A compatibility assessment of bioeconomy-related Sustainable Development Goals for European policy coherence

In October 2018, the European Union (EU) launched an updated bioeconomy strategy with the aim of encouraging the substitution of fossil carbon with biomass feedstock in the industry and in energy production while preserving ecosystem services. The objective of the paper is to analyse the links between the EU bioeconomy strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to assess what could be the main points of synergies and tensions between bioeconomy-related SDG targets. By semantically mapping the action plan of the 2018 EU bioeconomy strategy with the SDG targets, the paper finds that the bioeconomy strategy is aligned with 53 targets distributed in 12 of the 17 SDGs. Ex-post correlation analysis on bioeconomy-related SDGs indicators for 28 EU Member States (1990–2018) shows a predominance of synergies over trade-offs. More intense synergetic past developments (positive correlations) are found among clean energies (SDG 7), recycling (SDG 11), ecosystem preservation (SDG 15) and most of all other bioeconomy-related SDGs. Negative correlations are observed between agro-biodiversity (SDG 2), domestic material consumption of biomass (SDG 8 and 12), agriculture and industrial developments (SDG 2 and SDG 9) and a wide array of bioeconomy-related SDG indicators. The hotspots of strong correlations identified might be useful in further enrichment of ex-ante simulation models. From a policy coherence perspective, a wide range of policy instruments are already in place in the EU to foster synergies and may bring co-benefits. Policies oriented at preventing trade-offs are already in place but they have not overcome the antagonisms observed in this study yet. Change in practices, technical and technological innovations and the application of circular and ‘cascading principles’ are the most common fields of action.

Characterization of resource consumption and efficiency trends in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan: Economy-wide biotic and abiotic material flow accounting from 1978 to 2017

This study, conducted as a first try, explores the resource metabolism in three main economies in South Asia (in terms of both scale and growing rate of economy) namely Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, with a standard economy-wide material flow accounting approach using the most updated data from 1978 to 2017. In detail, resource consumption patterns, resource efficiency and productivity, trade related issues, as well as macro-policies affecting regional resource utilization were analyzed in-depth. Results highlighted that, in general, rapid consumption of imported resources, especially construction minerals, fossil fuels, and industrial minerals has emerged. Domestic material consumption per capita increased by 81%, 93% and 46% during 1978–2017 in the three countries, respectively, due to the living standards enhancement, improved urban infrastructure as well as rapid industrial development. With rapidly growing resource consumption, improvements in resource productivity were still low compared with mature economies like Japan and United States. It was 410.7 USD/t for Bangladesh, followed by India (358.7 USD/t) and Pakistan (275.0 USD/t), as of 2017. One critical finding was that resource intensive production (e.g., primary materials, textile and agricultural products etc.) was driving most of the bilateral trade among the three countries, which resulted in lower overall resource productivity. The other critical insight was the future increasing pressure on regional and global resource competition, according to the revealed rising inflow of foreign resources in the studied countries. Finally, the macro-policy analysis highlighted that the impacts of environmental protection and resource efficiency policies were far from enough. And, lower per capita GDP of this region was still a significant impediment for integrated environmental and resources management. Higher focus on resource productivity, from a policy perspective, on agricultural and industrial sectors is highly recommended to forward beneficial implications for the selected countries.

Material use and resource efficiency of African sub-regions

Abstract Material flow analysis is one of the developed tools to analyze regional resource utilization and efficiency, but still, no holistic analysis has been done for African sub-regions. Africa and its sub-regions are experiencing a gradual but transitional development, leading to the steady growth of resource use. This study dived into African nations’ material flow accounts and conducted a statistical evaluation of material use, resource efficiency and driving forces in different sub-regions of Africa between 1980 and 2017 to investigate resource use patterns in Africa. Our results reveal significant disparities of material use and distinguishable driving forces at the sub-regional level of Africa. During the last four decades, Western and Central Africa shows the highest cumulative material consumption at 54 Gt dominated by biomass consumption, while non-metallic minerals dominate the consumption in North Africa with a compounding annual growth rate of 4.5 %. Per capita domestic material consumption (DMC) in Southern Africa experiences a declining trend from >10 t/capita to 7 t/capita per year. Per capita DMC in other three sub-regions is increasing, in which North Africa now has the highest per capita DMC at 10 t/capita per year. Using the logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) technique, this study examines the IPAT equation in DMC at the sub-regional level of Africa. GDP growth has surpassed the impact of population growth in Southern Africa, while population growth is still the most significant driver in other three regions over a period of time. Technological factors have begun to offset material use in all sub-regions since 2000, and this offset is prominent in Southern Africa. Our results could be a basis to spur mutual communication and cooperation among African countries on the governance of sustainable resource production and use to improve the resource efficiency of African countries as a convergent and lasting trend.

Efficiency of materials management in the European Union

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to measure and evaluate the efficiency of materials management in the European Union countries (EU-28) during the period of 2008–2017. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted using the method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and variables applied to determine the resource productivity indicator. Therefore, the components of domestic material consumption constituted inputs in the DEA method, while gross domestic product (GDP) was applied as an output. Findings The results of the analysis showed that the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Latvia and the UK are the efficiency leaders among all the member states of the European Union. One of the least efficient countries is Poland, which uses too much natural resources in the process of generating goods and services. However, this consumption is growing at a slower rate than the value of GDP, which is beneficial from the point of view of sustainable development. Poland, like other inefficient countries, should reduce its consumption of natural resources in line with the best international practices. Practical implications The obtained research results can be a valuable source of information for decision-makers, and contribute to the adoption of more effective policies in order to improve the relationship between materials consumption and economic growth. Originality/value The application of the DEA method for calculating the efficiency of materials management represents a new approach, and it is the first attempt of its kind in the European Union countries.

ANALYSIS ON THE IMPACT OF INVESTMENTS, ENERGY USE AND DOMESTIC MATERIAL CONSUMPTION IN CHANGING THE ROMANIAN ECONOMIC PARADIGM

The main aim of the paper is to assess the impact of fix capital, energy use and domestic material consumption in changing the inland Romanian economic paradigm, from an economic perspective, using the intensive form of the Cobb-Douglas function. In order to identify various connections of economic growth, sustainable development, energy usage has determined the application of the vector error correction (VEC) model and the implied error correction term (ECT). This method was chosen based on the premise that it has a high degree of applicability and it can be used in order to revile significant aspects terms of indicator significance and displays. The results obtained during the research confirm that both in Romania and at EU-28 level there are determinant and significant elements shaping a proactive economic policy.