Eurostat's work on resource productivity indicators and green jobs

Walter J. RadermacherChief Statistician of the European Union

Presentation at informal meeting of Environment Ministers16 July 2014, Milano

Some key questions related to the environment

1) Which cocktail of driving forces is causing pressures on the environment (Population x GDP/capita x Pressures/GDP; the long term interaction between these factors)?

2) How is efficiency (Pressures/GDP) developing (single factor and multi factor productivity, taxation of factors, trading schemes)?

3) How is the status of our environment in its main natural components (resilience, quantitative depletion, qualitative degradation, tipping points of systems)?

4) How far are political and economic responses preventing or treating environmental damages (circular economy, green goods and jobs, environmental expenditure)?

5) How are our activities influencing the environment elsewhere or in the future (footprint of production and consumption, international trade)?

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Living well within the limits of our planet

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• 5 main themes• 8 headline indicators• 80+ descriptive indicators

Smarter, greener, more inclusive? Indicators to support the Europe 2020 strategy

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Main Europe 2020 indicators 2005 –> now in 10 seconds

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Resource efficiency scoreboard on Eurostat's website

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Resource efficiency scoreboard on Eurostat's website

A three-tier system based on available statistics from Eurostat, the EEA, the JRC and other international recognised sources for the Europe 2020 Flagship initiative "A resource-efficient Europe" and its roadmap.

Lead indicator (Resource productivity = GDP/DMC) (from Eurostat's environmental accounts – Regulation (EU) No 691/2011)

Dashboard indicators (land, water, carbon)

Sets of thematic indicators'Transforming the economy' (waste treatment and recycling, eco-innovation, getting prices right – environmental taxes) 'Nature and ecosystems' (biodiversity, air, land, marine resources) 'Key areas' (food, buildings, mobility)

Eurostat press release 186/2013 of 6 Dec. 2013: Thirty indicators to measure resource efficiency in the EU

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Resource productivity (GDP/DMC) latest data (from Eurostat's environmental accounts Regulation (EU) No 691/2011)

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DMC - shortcomings

• Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) measures the materials that actually circulate in the economy of a country and that remain in the country as stocks (e.g. in buildings) or end up as waste/emissions.

• "Asymmetry" from a resource perspective: domestic extraction is raw materials (e.g. gross ore, crude coal etc.) but imports & exports are often goods (e.g. cars, machinery, mobile phones, etc.) -> de-manufacturing can drive down DMC

• Solution: convert imports and exports into their Raw Material Equivalents (RME) taking into account the entire production chain from the cradle to the border

• This gives a "footprint-type" indicator = Raw Material Consumption (RMC)

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RMC – difficulties

•RMC cannot be "observed" => various modelling approaches convert trade data into raw material equivalents.

•Eurostat uses an extended hybrid single region input-output model to estimate EU totals for RMC. Other models exist. For individual Member States calculations may be less reliable.

Comparing some EU totals for RMC:•Eurostat's RMC model: 17,5 t/capMultiregional global input-output models:•WIOD (7th Framework Programme): 20.6 t/cap•EXIOBASE (6th Framework Programme): 21.2 t/cap•EORA (University of Sidney): 23.4 t/cap

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DMC and RMC - does it make a difference? RMC a bit higher for most countries (lower for Germany) but trends not very different

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*…RMC for individual countries not available for all years, ratios partly interpolated

Breakdown by material - DMC

construction is main driver of RMC

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Breakdown by material - RMC

• Problem analysis

• Identifying appropriate measures

• Target setting

• Implementation of measures

• Monitoring

• Correction of targets/measures

DMC as lead indicator at EU and Member State level has legal base, RMC estimated at EU level and by few MS currently

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Policy cycle

• Problem analysis

• Identifying appropriate measures

• Target setting

• Implementation of measures

• Monitoring

• Correction of targets/measures

Policy cycle

full range of accounts:

e.g. RMC calculationse.g. material breakdowne.g. industry breakdown(multifactor productivity)e.g. decomposition analyses(driving forces)e.g. linking to IO modelse.g. footprint type analyses

…not necessarily only official statistics; close cooperation with research

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Example: industry profiles (shares of different industries for main characteristics, EU 27, 2010)

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Example: Driving forces of CO2 emissions in NL

Example: Environmental employment in EU-28

Source: Eurostat (env_ac_egss1)

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Thank you for your attention! Walter.Radermacher@ec.europa.eu http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat