Miljøprojekt, 1160 – Udvikling af indikatorsystem for materialestrømme, ressourceforbrug og -effektivitet samt affaldsstrømme

Udvikling af indikatorsystem for materialestrømme, ressourceforbrug og -effektivitet samt affaldsstrømme

Summary and conclusions

Chapter 1
Introduction

The focus of the project is the role of natural resources when striving for a more sustainable development. Natural resources are indispensable as the basis for economic activities and human welfare. To achieve sustainable development it is important that natural resources are used carefully to ensure that also future generations have access to natural resources and ensure control of to what extent and in what way natural resources end up as waste and other potential environmental effects.

The aim of the project has been to analyse how it is possible to develop indicators for

Denmark’s consumption of natural resources (the direct and the indirect consumption and also resources which are part of the economy as so-called “used” resources and resources which are not part of the economy as so-called “unused” resources (like soil that is moved as part of extraction of minerals). The resource consumption includes resources consumed in other countries for the extraction and manufacturing of natural resources, semi-manufactured articles and products imported to Denmark.
The changes in resource efficiency, including considerations about at what levels and for what fields it is relevant measure resource efficiency.
The direct waste generation in Denmark and material flows linked hereto in Denmark and in other countries.

As part of these analyses overall assessments are done of the economic resources needed for the development, maintenance, updating and analyses of these indicators.

The focus of the project is not only on resource efficiency, but also on the size of the resource consumption, because it is an assumption in the project that a more sustainable development cannot be achieved by only increasing the resource efficiency. It is also necessary to reduce the consumption of a number of non-renewable resources and a number of resources, which imply environmental effects.

It is necessary not only to assess the total resource consumption, but also focus on different types of resources connecting to different aspects of environmental impact and resource consumption. The focus on branches and sectors aims at developing a basis for using material flow accounts as an element in environmental policy.

The Danish resource consumption cannot be regarded as a Danish issue alone. An increasing world population, an increasingly growing consumption in the rich part of the World (including Denmark) and a wish for increased welfare from the more poor part of the World imply that the global resource consumption and the linked environmental effects are increasing. This is thrown into relief by the fact that the fight about the control of resources historically has led to conflicts and wars.

The project started in 2002. The background of the project was, among others, a wish from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency for obtaining a basis for the development of indicators and data collection in relation to the Danish national strategy for sustainable development.

Of relevance in the Danish national strategy for sustainable development to the focus of this project on material flows are the following objectives:

A long term reduction of the resource consumption to 25% of the present consumption. “Long term” seems to imply within a generation
In 2020 no products on the market should contain very hazardous chemicals in relation to health or environment
A 50% reduction of the CO2 emissions in Denmark within a generation could be the result of the increasingly stronger demands for reduction of the emissions in the coming years

By now several ways of analysing the activities of a society in an environmental perspective have been developed. Material flow accounts, which this project focuses on, are one example of the efforts to develop the understanding of the environmental aspects of the economy.

The analyses of the environmental aspects of the economy put the natural limits to the societal development on the agenda in a new way. It is becoming more and more obvious that human activities cannot just increasingly grow, when different analyses show how the human activities already now have negative effects on the environment. One could say the scale of the economy is getting on the agenda.

When introducing the concept of “sustainable development” analyses of the effects of the economy on nature gets even more interest. The concept of sustainable development sets the scene for a more overall perspective on the environment, which enables assessments of whether the development is positive or negative. This perspective is different from a perspective where the environmental development is seen as a number of separate environmental problems.

The problem of scale and the natural limits to the economic growth make clear that there are problems of distribution, globally and nationally, with respect to the use of natural resources. The resources, e.g. energy or land, which one person uses, are not available for others, when there are limits to how much we can exploit nature. The environmental discourse implies two kinds of responsibility: the responsibility to produce in an environmentally responsible way and the responsibility to limit the growth of the economy. To the rich countries the latter kind of responsibility implies that the consumption has to be reduced in order to create space for an increasing consumption in the developing countries. Another distribution problem is the difference between the consumption of rich and of poor people in the Western part of the World as well as in the developing countries.

The word “indicator” comes from Latin “indicator, indicare”, which means “pointing at” or “show indirectly”. In this project indicators are developed, which should enable assessments of whether the Danish resource consumption is developing in a more or a less sustainable direction. There is a mutual interaction between the availability of data and the actual policy: If there are no data it is difficult to pursue a policy on a certain field and the other way round there is only demand for data within a certain field. if there is a policy.

The growing interest for the assessment of the sustainability of national economies or their development in a more or less sustainable direction opens unique possibilities for putting the problems of scale and distribution on the agenda. This growing interest is a result of the demand for national strategies for sustainable development for the World Summit in Johannesburg September 2002 (the Rio+10 Summit). The growing interest implies also the risk that the debate drowns in data without thorough analyses of the driving forces behind positive and negative changes in resource consumption and environmental impacts. At the same time, the growing international awareness around sustainable development implies that all countries want to be seen as sustainable, which implies a lot efforts to choose indicators and assess data in a way that actually makes a country look sustainable.

An important element in the development of indicators in the project has been discussions of the total resource consumption (including unused and indirect material flows) as an indicator of whether a country is developing in a more or less sustainable direction. On the one hand calculations of the total resource consumption as one number could be seen as a clear indicator of the resource consumption of a national economy and the related environmental impacts. On the other hand there are so much uncertainty connected to these calculations that such an overall indicator hardly can be the only indicator.

The report emphasises the future need for a stronger debate about the impacts of and driving forces behind resource consumption, about strategies for reduced resource consumption and about the ability of different indicators to contribute to this debate.

Chapter 2
Classification and measuring of physical flows

The physical flows (material-and energy flows) are classified according to their different appearance in the economy:

Natural resources
Commodities
Waste and emissions

Natural resources:

Natural resources can be used or unused resources. The flow of unused resources includes those resources, which are influenced by the economic activity, but which are not brought into the economy. Examples are topsoil, which are moved by mining, or remains of plants in agriculture.

A rough classification of resources can be done by using the classification of environmental assets in the international used SEEA system. The environmental assets are divided into 3 groups: natural resources, land and area and ecosystems.

It is important to measure resources because of:

value: economical, ethic, health, needs, educational etc.
scarcity: regeneration of renewable resources, discovery of new resources,
control: conflicts, distribution of resources and resource use,
devastation: fragmentation, pollution, protection, sensitiveness
environment and health during production and consumption

The amount of resources available to man (the reserves) can be defined as:

for renewable resources: natures regeneration of new resources (t/year)
for non-renewable resources:
2.1 Fossil fuels: the fossil fuels, which can be exploited by to days available technology at a price less than 3 times the mean price of the last 10 years.
2.2 scarce metals: the metals contained in ores in the outer earth crust, which can be exploited by to days available technology at a price 3 times less the mean price of the last 10 years. The total amount of metals existing in the ores is estimated at 400-2000 times the yearly exploitation amount today. The ores are of varying grade and copper and tin are among the scarce metals with lowest reserves of high-grade ores. Much higher amounts of metals exit scattered in the minerals outside the ores.
2.3 light metals: For aluminium and iron the resources are almost indefinite, since 8% of the earth crust consist of aluminium and 5% of iron.
2.4 Non-metallic minerals: the metals contained in formations and ores in the outer earth crust. Phosphate is among the scarcest non-metallic mineral, since its highest grade is found as phosphorit, which is accumulated from dead animals. Resources of other non-metallic minerals are almost endless such as granite stone, sand and gravel.

Commodities:

Commodities can be classified according to the Combined Nomenclature (KN), which is the EU-CommodityNomenclature. The Danish Statistic Bureau uses this nomenclature for the "Industry Commodity Statistic" and the "Foreign Trade Statistic".

Waste and emissions:

At the output side of the national economy you find - apart from the exports -the waste and emissions of different substances. Looking on the whole economy and looking on the physical flows from the economy into the environment, it is necessary to use a broad concept of waste and emissions. For example the classification proposed by Eurostat can be used.

The classification system of Eurostat shows solid waste as a single category. For practical purposes classification of wasteflows can be done according to the categories in the Danish Waste Statistic (ISAG). Doing this one has to consider where to place the borderline between economy and environment. In some contexts (MFA) it will be relevant to consider flows of waste for further treatment (for example for incineration) as flows, which take place inside the economy, by which the only solid wastes leaving the economy are solid waste, which are landfilled or deposited.

The emissions and the effects on the environment and health are described according to the resources and processes from which they origin:

Fossil fuels: gasses (greenhouse, acidification, eutroficating) particles (small particles, flyash, heavy metals), solid remains (slag's, flyash, heavy metals)
Radioactive substances (radiation, radioactive dust)
Chemicals (dangerous chemical substances, dangerous waste)
Metallic minerals ( metals, heavy metals, cyanide, mining waste)
Non-metallic minerals ( topsoil, solid waste)
Timber ( reduction of biodiversity, risk of flooding and erosion)
Crops and animals ( eutrofication, pesticides, nitrate, greenhouse gasses, reduction of biodiversity)
Solid waste ( dioxin, heavy metals, dangerous chemical substances )

Chapter 3
Effects on environment and health

The concept of sustainable development is concretised into criteria's for welfare, health, and non-renewable resources and renewable resources:

The basic needs for food, clean drinking water, housing, clothe, education and social relations shall be met for every human being, and poverty is unacceptable.
Every human being has the right for a healthy life, which means hygienic safe surroundings, healthy food, healthy housing, and access to healthcare and medicine.
The ecological space (carrying capacity) for emissions into nature must not be exceeded (Wuppertal 1995). The ecological space for emissions can be defined as the emissions, which nature can convert and which do not change the quality of nature to an unacceptable degree (Unity: tons/year or tons/person/year).
The exploitation of non-renewable resources shall be less than or equal to new resources, which can be exploited by to day's available technology and prices.
The exploitation of renewable resources shall be less than or equal to nature's regeneration of new resources.

By a risk assessment and by the concepts of "ecological space" and "sustainable development" the material flows, which have the most severe impact on environment and health in Denmark are delimited:

Fossil fuels
Heavy metals
Dangerous chemical substances
Nitrogen compounds

Further he area-use is found to be a good indicator for ecosystems and biodiversity.

Fossil fuels

IEA, (2002), extrapolated the world’s use of fossil fuels and found that CO₂ emissions will increase by among 70% in the period 2000-2030. Increasing emissions of CO₂ will cause increasing concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere will increase the greenhouse effect and will change the climate (IPCC 2001). Climate changes will very likely cause drought, rising water levels, extreme weather, flooding, melting of the ice at the poles and the high mountains, diseases, poverty, migration and many deaths (IPCC 2001).

Heavy metals

Heavy metals dispersed into nature can be bio-accumulated in the food chain. By the process of bioaccumulation animals and humans can accumulate high concentration of heavy metals, which causes severe sickness in the nervous system, brain, blood, skin and other organs.

Dangerous Chemicals

Still more dangerous chemicals are developed, produced, used and dispersed into nature, and the authorities are not able to assess, classify and regulate all these new substances.

In Denmark and EU among 30.000 different chemicals are in use. The risk of all these chemicals are different and only a few are until now assessed for risk by the EU.

The slow biodegradable and bioaccumulating chemicals will be accumulated in the food chain. By this process mammals and humans accumulates a mixed cocktail of a lot of unhealthy substances. Dangerous chemicals can cause cancer, allergy, hormone disorder, nerve and brain sickness, reduced reproduction capacity, deformed babies etc.

Nitrogen-compounds

Emission of nitrogen-compounds causes:

eutrofication of inlets, coastal zones and oceans
percolating of nitrate into the groundwater
eutrofication of sensitive terrestrial nature as meadows and moors

The main sources of nitrogen emission are agriculture activities. Thus most of the pollution of the groundwater by nitrogen comes from agriculture and around 80% of the emissions of nitrogen into the Danish inlets and coastal waters come from Danish agriculture (DEPA 1999).

Degradation of ecosystems and reduction of biodiversity

Globally human beings confiscate more and more natural areas for his need, which causes tremendous destruction and reduction of the ecosystems and the biodiversity.

In Denmark natural ecosystems and biodiversity has been tremendous destructed and reduced in two tempi during the last 2.000 years. First transforming forest into medieval agriculture and second transforming medieval agriculture into industrialised agriculture with use of pesticides and fertilisers and transforming handcrafts into energy intensive industrial society based on fossil fuels. The Wilhjelm-Commitee (2001) found that the reduction of Danish nature has continued the last 20 years, and that the quality of Danish nature and the biological variety have never been poorer.

Chapter 4
Levels of analyses and types of models

Since the economy is a part of the ecology and the nature, the natural laws not only applies for the nature but also for the economy. The most relevant natural laws for this context are:

The law of mass conservation
The 1. Law of thermodynamic: the law of energy conservation
The 2. Law of thermodynamic: the law of increasing entropy in a closed system

In both nature and economy you have to distinguish between stocks and flows.

In nature the stocks for examples are the amount of fresh water, the amount of precious wood in the rainforests or the amount of oil-reserves. Stock can also consist of an amount of energy, for example chemical energy stored in the coal-reserves.

In the economy the stocks are the accumulated amounts of materiel and energy. The stocks of materials measured by weight consist mostly of infrastructure and buildings, but also of used resources, machinery, semi-manufactures and products in stocks or in use. The stocks of energy are small and consist mostly of stocks of oil and coal.

The materials flow from natures stocks of resources into the economy through the stocks of the economy in the form of commodities and back to nature as emissions.

The energy flows primarily from the sun-radiation through different paths into thermal heat and reflection back to the universe.

The flows of material and energy between the ecology and the economy are described in 3 dimensions:

Materials ( elements, chemical substances, mixtures)
The economy ( the whole economy, sectors, lines of businesses)
Material flows ( resources, import, export, products, emissions)

Additional are of coarse the 4 universal dimensions of space and time.

Models in different levels can describe the material and energy flows between the ecology and the economy and inside the economy.

The levels of models can be described by a model-pyramid in which the simplest models are in the top of the pyramid and the most complicated and detailed models are at the ground of the pyramid:

Level 1: Basic model
Level 2: Economy Wide MFA
Level 3: Sector-model
Level 4: Model of main lines of businesses
Level 5: Model of 130 lines of businesses

Chapter 5
Detailed models

The economy is divided by 2 cuts in order to divide the economy into production, consumption and waste-and wastewater treatment. This is the so-called "Sector-model".

Hereby we can look inside the economy and describe and get information about the following essential matters:

The private consumption
Waste and waste water treatment
Recycling of waste
Emissions disaggregated into their origin from production, consumption and waste-and wastewater treatment
The accumulated materials in production, consumption and waste-and waste-water treatment

The Sector-model was loaded by data for Denmark 1990. Each Dane used 1,8 tons of materials per year produced in Denmark plus 0,4 tons/year-imported goods - total 2,2 tons/person/year. To procure this consumption 32 tons/person/year of resources were handled inclusive resources in the foreign countries to procure the import. The extracted resources plus the import were transformed into emissions of 23,5 tons /person/year, stocks (investments) of 11,4 tons/person/year and exports of 4,6 tons/person/year.

It is shown that the emissions are biggest in the beginning of the economy and decreasing through the economy. Thus the emissions from unused resources are 8,4 tons/person/year (6,9 tons/person/year from extraction of stone, clay and gravel) and 12,5 tons/person/year from production mostly from agriculture (liquid manure) and combustion of fossil fuels. The amount of green fodder was 4,1 tons/person/year (around 80% water content) and 0,3-tons/person/year corn for fodder. The major part of the green fodder and corn fodder was transformed to liquid manure.

In the back end of the economy the emissions were relatively small. 1,7 tons/person/year from households direct to nature (mainly greenhouse gasses) and 0,9 tons/person/year from waste-and wastewater treatment (exclusive water itself).

In summary you find that:

a relatively small material-flow for consumption implies big material-flows for resource-extraction and production ( direct and trough import and export)
Denmark, which is a small open economy, has major material-flows per person linked to import and export, but still are most material flows linked to domestic resource extraction.
the major emissions per person are from resource extraction and production
the mean degree of recirculation of waste is among 50%.
total emissions are 15 times greater, than the material flow for consumption
total emissions are 18 times greater than the collected waste and substances in wastewater. Thus the collected waste is only "the top of the mountain".

Chapter 7
Resource-efficiency, de-coupling and lifetime

Resource-efficiency expresses how well resources are used for meeting human needs. Resource-efficiency then can be defined as the relation between the meeting of the human needs and the resources used to meet those needs.

Resource-efficiency can be defined purely by material flows and can be calculated for the whole society with and without unused flows and for each sector of the society and for each line of business. Other expressions for efficiency and intensity can be defined by relating material flows to economic turnover, service-units or the number of inhabitants.

Resource-efficiency can be defined in relation to the sector-model. Mathematical expressions for resource-efficiency with and without unused flows are developed for the whole society. Resource-efficiency is calculated as the flow of products into the household's inclusive imports of consumption-products divided by the sum of domestic extracted resources plus the import minus the export.

Furthermore expressions for resource-efficiency is developed for each sector of the society, which means the sectors of resource-extraction, production, consumption and waste-and wastewater treatment. Resource-efficiency is calculated as the direct used physical flows through the sector divided by the corresponding use of resources.

Also expressions for resource-efficiency for different specific flows are lined up. Thus in a matrix-form expressions for energy-efficiency, water-efficiency and the efficiency for the use of dangerous chemicals and heavy metals are set up.

In the DPSIR-model resource-efficiency expresses the relation between the flow of products in the "driving force" category and the flow of resources in the "pressure" category.

Resource-efficiency can be greater than ”1”, if materials are recirculated back to production. If all resources are recirculated and reused, or lifetime is infinite long, or emissions are zero, resource-efficiency will be infinite great

The resource-efficiency for total material flows was calculated to 0,07 without unused flows and to 0,04 with unused flows for Denmark 1990.To increase resource efficiency and decrease emissions it is most important to reduce use of energy and fossil fuels and to reduce accumulation of materials for constructions.

For the furniture line of business in Denmark the resource-efficiency for materials were calculated to be 0,4 for the furniture line of business itself, but 0,1 for the whole life cycles of furniture including unused flows during resource-extraction. The energy-efficiency was calculated to be 41 tons furniture/TJ for the furniture line of business itself but 140 t furniture/ TJ for the whole life cycle of furniture including regaining of energy by waste incineration.

Chapter 8
Proposal for a superior indicator-system

The word "indicator" comes from Latin, "indicator, indicate", which means "point at" or "show indirectly". In this context the indicators shall show if the material-flows approximates sustainable development.

The value of the indicator can be compared to the political defined target of sustainable development and the distance to target can be calculated.

Demands must be claimed on the indicators for their relevance, quality, and methods of measurement, validity, uncertainty, precision, comparability, understandably, data accessibility and frequency. It is recommended to use the methodology proposed by the UN, (2001) modified for use at national level:

It is recommended to structure the indicator-system as an indicator-pyramid. In the top of the pyramid are few top-indicators, and at the bottom of the pyramid are many detailed indicators. The indicator-pyramid consist of the following levels from the top and downwards:

Level A: Top-indicators
Level B: Key-indicators
Level C: Major flows-and area indicators
Level D: Line of business indicators
Level E: Detailed indicators

The indicator-pyramid is further structured by a formal indicator-system, which is related to the sector-model. The formal indicator-system is a matrix with the following types of indicators:

Physical flows/resource-efficiency/lifetime
Pressure on ecological space/ intensity of welfare
Resource-intensity/economic de-coupling
Resource-use/emissions/material welfare per inhabitant

Thus an indicator-system consisting of an indicator-pyramid structured by formal indicators is recommended:

Click here to see table

By the risk assessment the following groups of indicators and their top-indicators are delimited in the table:

Aggregated material flows, MFA
Total energy consumption, TEC
Area of almost unaffected nature, A_n
Use of dangerous material flows, DFC
Other: Water, nitrogen, other greenhouse gasses

Each of these groups should as far as possible be described by balances/ accounts for resources and emissions reflecting the laws of conservation. Each group is further disintegrated down through the indicator-pyramid.

In the top of the pyramid are indicators for total material requirement, TMR, total energy consumption, TEC, area of almost unaffected nature, A_n, and dangerous flow consumption, DFC. In the bottom of the pyramid (level D and E) are indicators for the specific material flows in specific lines of businesses.

Moving from the top to the bottom of the pyramid - from level A to level C (from the left to the right in the table) - the disaggregation of the top-indicators are:

Aggregated material-flows expressed by the head MFA-indicators are disintegrated by partition in such a way, that the sum of material flows in level C is equal to the sum of material flows in level B

Total energy consumption, TEC, is divided into consumption of fossil energy and production of renewable energy and the part of the energy, which is converted into production and consumption of electricity. In the material account for fossil fuels the total emissions from fossil fuels are calculated (These should be equal to the consumption of fossil fuels).

The fossil fuels are divided into the types of fossil fuels (coal, oil, petrol and natural gas). Emissions are divided into the types of emissions (greenhouse gasses, eutroficating gasses, acidification gasses, slag's and flyash).

Production of renewable energy is divided into electricity from fossil fuels and electricity from renewable sources. The electricity consumption is divided into consumption in households and in production. The natural laws of conservation and the sector-model are applied.

The relative area of almost unaffected nature, A_n/A, is divided in level B into almost unaffected terrestic nature and almost unaffected inlets and coastal areas. Furthermore the relative area of gentle dominated land is added. The sum of areas in level C is equal to the sum of areas in level B.

The consumption of dangerous material flows, DFC, is divided into consumption and emissions of dangerous chemicals and heavy metals in level B and further into high, medium and low risk material flows in level C. In level C the consumption of radioactive substances and risk-GMO are added. The flow of mass-conservation and the sector-model are applied.

Other material flows - water, nitrogen and other greenhouse gasses - are divided according to their sector of origin: households, agriculture, industry and combustion/non-combustion processes. The laws of mass-conservation and the sector-model are applied.

The indicators in the table fall into 3 categories:

Indicators already accounted
Indicators, which can be accounted from existing statistic information
Indicators where statistics are non-existing or scattered

Some of the indicators must be calculated from data, which are scattered between different statistics at different authorities, statistic bureau's and private organisations.