In 2007, imports accounted for approximately 34% of the material input (domestic extraction and imports) into the Austrian economy and almost 60% of the GDP stemmed from exports. Upstream material inputs into the production of traded goods, however, are not yet included in the standard framework of material flow accounting (MFA). We have reviewed different approaches accounting for these upstream material inputs, or raw material equivalents (RME), positioning them in a wider debate about consumption-based perspectives in environmental accounting. For the period 1995-2007, we calculated annual RME of Austria's trade and consumption applying a hybrid approach. For exports and competitive imports, we used an environmentally extended input-output model of the Austrian economy, based on annual supply and use tables and MFA data. For noncompetitive imports, coefficients for upstream material inputs were extracted from life cycle inventories. The RME of Austria's imports and exports were approximately three times larger than the trade flows themselves. In 2007, Austria's raw material consumption was 30 million tonnes or 15% higher than its domestic material consumption. We discuss the material composition of these flows and their temporal dynamics. Our results demonstrate the need for a consumption-based perspective in MFA to provide robust indicators for dematerialization and resource efficiency analysis of open economies.

The international industrial ecology (IE) research community and United Nations (UN) Environment have, for the first time, agreed on an authoritative and comprehensive data set for global material extraction and trade covering 40 years of global economic activity and natural resource use. This new data set is becoming the standard information source for decision making at the UN in the context of the post-2015 development agenda, which acknowledges the strong links between sustainable natural resource management, economic prosperity, and human well-being. Only if economic growth and human development can become substantially decoupled from accelerating material use, waste, and emissions can the tensions inherent in the Sustainable Development Goals be resolved and inclusive human development be achieved. In this paper, we summarize the key findings of the assessment study to make the IE research community aware of this new global research resource. The global results show a massive increase in materials extraction from 22 billion tonnes (Bt) in 1970 to 70 Bt in 2010, and an acceleration in material extraction since 2000. This acceleration has occurred at a time when global population growth has slowed and global economic growth has stalled. The global surge in material extraction has been driven by growing wealth and consumption and accelerating trade. A material footprint perspective shows that demand for materials has grown even in the wealthiest parts of the world. Low-income countries have benefited least from growing global resource availability and have continued to deliver primary materials to high-income countries while experiencing few improvements in their domestic material living standards. Material efficiency, the amount of primary materials required per unit of economic activity, has declined since around 2000 because of a shift of global production from very material-efficient economies to less-efficient ones. This global trend of recoupling economic activity with material use, driven by industrialization and urbanization in the global South, most notably Asia, has negative impacts on a suite of environmental and social issues, including natural resource depletion, climate change, loss of biodiversity, and uneven economic development. This research is a good example of the IE research community providing information for evidence-based policy making on the global stage and testament to the growing importance of IE research in achieving global sustainable development.

Strategies for absolute reductions of resource use are required to address the multiple environmental crisis. We herein investigate, what the material footprint indicator (MF), used to monitor progress towards UN Sustainable Development Goals 8 and 12, shows but also hides about material flows domestically and globally. We geographically and structurally decompose the MF of China, the European Union (EU-27), and the United States of America (USA), between 1997 and 2017. We distinguish four footprint fractions based on either domestic or international extraction or processing, as well as four structural factors. We find that China's strong MF growth almost entirely occurred domestically, whereas MF growth in the EU-27 and the USA occurred due to imported inefficiencies of international supply chains. Reduced material intensity leads to resource savings only if not outweighed by growing final demand and imported inefficiency, which only occurred for the USA. The MF hides extractivist export-orientation, as domestic extraction for exports is allocated to the consuming countries. Nevertheless, insights into the interlinkages in the global economy available through the MF should be used more systematically to identify critical sectors and industries across countries with highest potentials for absolute reductions in material use within and across supply chains.

Aus einer wissenschaftlichen Konferenz zu ihrem 100. Geburtstag heraus entstanden, ehrt dieses Buch das Leben und die Arbeit der Sozialwissenschaftlerin und Diplomatin Ester Boserup, die neue Wege in der interdisziplinären Nachhaltigkeits- und Entwicklungsforschung beschritt. Der Inhalt ist in drei Abschnitte gegliedert, in denen sich die Brennpunkte Boserups Arbeit widerspiegeln: langfristiger sozial-ökologischer Wandel; Landwirtschaft, Landnutzung und Entwicklung; und Gender, Bevölkerung und Wirtschaft. Die Vielfalt der Beiträge streicht die andauernde Bedeutung der Arbeit Ester Boserups für heutige und zukünftige wissenschaftliche Arbeit hervor.

The growth in Austria's raw material consumption (RMC) or material footprint is driven by changes in consumption and production. In using the tool of structural decomposition analysis and applying it to Austrian RMC between 1995 and 2007, three specific drivers (technology, composition, and volume of final demand) are identified and quantified. The overall growth of Austrian RMC across the period of time under investigation shows that neither improved production or consumption efficiency nor reduction of consumption alone can lead to absolute material savings. The “rebound effect” has been used to describe how efficiency gains can be offset by growth in overall consumption, putting “degrowth” on the agenda of sustainability sciences and political movements. Absolute decoupling, that is, simultaneous growth in gross domestic product (GDP) and reduction of RMC, can only be achieved if reductions in final demand volume as a driver of material use are not offset by increases as a result of the changing final demand mix and/or technology effect (and vice versa). The Austrian case study provides very little evidence for such developments having occurred simultaneously during the period of time under investigation. In order for economic degrowth to contribute to lower material use and thus greater environmental protection, it must occur not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively in production and consumption structures.

Land use is recognized as a pervasive driver of environmental impacts, including climate change and biodiversity loss. Global trade leads to “telecoupling” between the land use of production and the consumption of biomass-based goods and services. Telecoupling is captured by accounts of the upstream land requirements associated with traded products, also commonly referred to as land footprints. These accounts face challenges in two main areas: (1) the allocation of land to products traded and consumed and (2) the metrics to account for differences in land quality and land-use intensity. For two main families of accounting approaches (biophysical, factor-based and environmentally extended input-output analysis), this review discusses conceptual differences and compares results for land footprints. Biophysical approaches are able to capture a large number of products and different land uses, but suffer from a truncation problem. Economic approaches solve the truncation problem, but are hampered by the limited disaggregation of sectors and products. In light of the conceptual differences, the overall similarity of results generated by both types of approaches is remarkable. Diametrically opposed results for some of the world's largest producers and consumers of biomass-based products, however, make interpretation difficult. This review aims to provide clarity on some of the underlying conceptual issues of accounting for land footprints.