How to make Europe the most resource and energy efficient economy in the world

This project funded by the Aachen Foundation Kathy Beys develops three main outputs:

1. A study on policy processes and legislative initiatives of the EU which could contribute to increasing the energy and resource efficiency of the European Union.

2. A background paper on "Resource use indicators in the EU" prepared by SERI in cooperation with the Global Footprint Network.

3. A consensus statement on the importance of national material flow accounts, signed by a number of important institutions working in the field of material flow accounting and ecological footprinting. 

1. The study "Factor X and the European Union"

Today, there is almost full consensus across the political spectrum that increasing the EU's resource and energy efficiency would benefit the European Union in many ways. Such a strategy would push forward innovation, increase competitiveness, improve the environment, create jobs and save money, which now is spent on expensive imports of resources and energy. Thereby, Europe would also contribute to a more fair and just world by reducing global environmental pressures, and could serve as an example how a sustainable society could look like.

When trying to promote such a strategy, one receives full support at first. When going into the details and wanting to establish the necessary economic and political framework, one faces however many obstacles and sometimes even ignorance.

This compilation of relevant policy processes and initiatives serves as a guide to what could be and must be done in the EU to achieve an additional goal for the Lisbon Strategy: making Europe the most resource and energy efficient (and thus most competitive) region in the world.

This study was elaborated in cooperation with Martin Rocholl from Friends of the Earth Europe and Kai Schlegelmilch from Green Budget Germany.

The completly revised 2nd edition of the study was published in October 2006 and can be downloaded here. 

2.  Background paper "Resource use indicators in the European Union"

Together with the Global Footprint Network, SERI prepared a paper on "Resource use indicators in the European Union: policy processes, indicator sets and criteria for a headline indicator". 

The paper summarises relevant policy processes in the EU (such as the EU Sustainable Development Strategy and the Lisbon Strategy), reviews existing indicator sets with relevance to the issue of resource use and resoure productivity, describes the state of the art in material flow accounting and ecological footprinting and defines criteria for a headline indicator on resource use on the European level.

The paper can be downloaded here.  

3. Consensus Statement: "Tracking Europe's Natural Resource Consumption"

The consensus statement was developed by SERI, the Wuppertal Institute, the Global Footprint Network and Friends of the Earth Europe and is so far endorsed by Best Foot Forward, the Charles University Environment Center and the Factor 10 Institute.

In the statement, we emphasise that providing for the well-being of a still growing world population within the limits of a finite planet is the key challenge for our future. Physical accounts and derived indicators are indispensable monitoring and analysis tools to understand and manage material flows through our economies. They are necessary for Europe to reach one central goal: to become the most resource and energy efficient region in the world – a region that maintains, rather than liquidates, natural capital.

We demand to strengthen material flow accounting (MFA) as the core information base for research and policy analysis related to natural resource use and resource productivity and therefore vital for sustainability policy, research and communication. We underline that a robust and well documented statistical basis on material flows is essential for many core areas of sustainability science: Carbon and greenhouse gas accounting, Ecological Footprints, Environmental space as well as assessments on the micro level (MIPS/LCA).

Furthermore, the consensus statement strongly encourages the broad adoption of “Total Material Consumption (TMC)”as a comprehensive headline indicator on natural resource use on the European Union level. As data quality and availability, in particular on unused domestic extraction (such as overburden from mining) and on indirect material flows of traded products is still poor for many countries, we strongly encourage the European Union to make this research a top priority.

The consensus statement can be downloaded here.