Raw Material Consumption of the European Union – Concept, Calculation Method, and Results

This article presents the concept, calculation method,
and first
results of the “Raw Material Consumption” (RMC) economy-wide
material flow indicator for the European Union (EU). The RMC measures
the final domestic consumption of products in terms of raw material
equivalents (RME), i.e. raw materials used in the complete production
chain of consumed products. We employed the hybrid input-output life
cycle assessment method to calculate RMC. We first developed a highly
disaggregated environmentally extended mixed unit input output table
and then applied life cycle inventory data for imported products without
appropriate representation of production within the domestic economy.
Lastly, we treated capital formation as intermediate consumption.
Our results show that services, often considered as a solution for
dematerialization, account for a significant part of EU raw material
consumption, which emphasizes the need to focus on the full production
chains and dematerialization of services. Comparison of the EU’s
RMC with its domestic extraction shows that the EU is nearly self-sufficient
in biomass and nonmetallic minerals but extremely dependent on direct
and indirect imports of fossil energy carriers and metal ores. This
implies an export of environmental burden related to extraction and
primary processing of these materials to the rest of the world. Our
results demonstrate that internalizing capital formation has significant
influence on the calculated RMC.