Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 15, Issue 17, November 2007, Pages 1662-1673
Journal of Cleaner Production

Linking analyses and environmental Kuznets curves for aggregated material flows in the EU

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2006.08.010Get rights and content

Abstract

The relationship between economy and environmental impacts has been an essential topic in the discussion on environmental problems for a long time. From the 1990s, this relationship has gained a position in environmental policy as well. De-coupling the use of natural resources from economic growth has been set as one of the policy goals in the sixth Environmental Action Programme by the European Commission. In the scientific discussion, the concept of environmental Kuznets curve deals closely with the de-coupling or de-linking phenomenon. Aggregated material flows, on the other hand, have often been considered as a macro-level proxy of environmental degradation. Different methods or approaches have been designed for “sustainability” or “carrying capacity” evaluation as well. The objective of this article is (i) to discuss the possibilities and limitations of using environmental and economic indicators in the sustainability analysis at the macro level, (ii) to present a theoretical framework for the linking analysis including a classification of the degrees of de-linking/re-linking environmental impacts from/to economic growth, and (iii) to give an empirical example by using indicators of direct material flows as a proxy of environmental degradation and by applying the framework into the European Union and its 15 member countries. The results show that the trend in the European Union is a weak de-linking of material flows from economic growth during the years 1980–2000. In other words, material intensity of the economy has generally decreased due to increased efficiency, but the absolute amount of material use has increased, although at a lower rate of increase than economic growth. On the other hand, there is a quite large variation between different EU member countries. However, absolute decrease in the use of materials cannot be found as a continuous trend between the years 1980 and 2000 in any of the studied EU member countries.

Introduction

The European Commission has defined objectives and major priorities for environmental policy over the next 10 years in the Sixth Environmental Action Programme [1]. The major priority areas include (i) climate change, (ii) nature and biodiversity, (iii) environment and health and quality of life, and (iv) natural resources and waste. The objective of the fourth priority area includes “to ensure the consumption of renewable and non-renewable resources does not exceed the carrying capacity of the environment” and “to achieve a de-coupling of resource use from economic growth through significantly improved resource efficiency, dematerialisation of the economy, and waste prevention” [1].

A policy framework for sustainable resource management is required both to guarantee the materials and energy supply of the EU economy and to safeguard the natural resource basis of a modern society also in the future [2]. On the other hand, many environmental problems are brought about by human-induced material flows. For this reason, material flow analysis can be considered as an important part of the European sustainable resource management framework [2].

Before the oil shocks in the 1970s, the economy and materials use had quite similar increasing trends at the macro level. After the oil shocks and after the emergence of the environmental discourse due to, e.g. the Club of Rome's report The Limits to Growth [3], this kind of interdependence between economic growth and materials use has not been self-evident any more. Especially increasing efficiency or eco-efficiency of materials use has become an important objective in environmental policies. Partly from these starting points, different methods for evaluating the macroeconomic or macro-level performance of societies have been developed in the fields of e.g. environmental science and economics. These methods include environmental input–output analysis [4], genuine savings approach [5], ecological rucksack or MIPS-analysis [6], ecological footprint analysis [7], and others.

De-linking or de-coupling environmental degradation from economic growth, as well as the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis dealing with this phenomenon, has become important elements in the scientific debate on economic growth versus the environment since these concepts were introduced in the early 1990s. Recently, de-coupling of resource use from economic growth has been adopted as a policy goal in the European Union [1].

Beside the scientific debate, the political importance of the interdependence between economic growth and environmental problems necessitates some testing to observe whether the state of the environment moves into a desired direction or not. For this purpose, after dealing with the indicators of environmental impacts, material flows and economic growth, we present in Section 3 of this article a theoretical framework which is applicable to all kinds of case studies at different levels of the society. The main limitations come from difficulties in defining system boundaries and selecting relevant indicators for environmental degradation at local, regional, or global level. In Section 4, we give an empirical example to observe what has been going on in the European Union member countries with direct material flows. The example concentrates on the linking process with two different variable sets during the years 1980–2000, i.e. de-linking or de-coupling material flows from economic growth, or re-linking material flows to economic growth. In addition, we also provide some examples of environmental Kuznets curves with the same empirical data in Section 5. And finally, the Section 6 concludes.

Section snippets

Indicators of material flows and economic growth

Within the international classification of environmental indicators such as in the pressure-state-response (PSR) framework [8], or in the extended driver-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework of the European Union [9], material flows fall into the group of pressure indicators. Pressure indicators identify and describe socio-economic activities, which create pressures on the environment. In other words, they create a potential for changes in the state of the environment, and a

A theoretical framework for the linking analysis

The linking process refers to the relationship between the trend of environmental degradation and the trend of economic development during a certain time period. In the previous literature, de Bruyn and Opschoor [24] have defined five different stages of the linking process, which is usually called as N-shaped curve. If the last stage of re-linking does not take place, one may speak about a genuine inverted U-shaped curve or environmental Kuznets curve (see below).

The concept of de-linking (or

Results from the linking analysis

Table 1 describes the linking process for material flows as measured by direct material input (DMI) and GDP (in 2000 US dollars adjusted by PPP) in the EU-15 countries. In the columns of Δ(DMI/GDP), ΔDMI and ΔDMI per capita, the color of the cell indicates the degree of the linking process. Light grey refers to strong de-linking, white to weak de-linking, and dark grey to expansive re-linking. All degrees of the linking process including decreasing GDP, i.e. strong and weak re-linking as well

Examples of environmental Kuznets curves on material flows

The de- and re-linking analyses give a broad overall picture of the economic growth from the point of view of ecological sustainability. The results from this analysis do not directly allow the drawing up of policy implications for the EU. However, in order to better understand the policy situation, the analysis must be deepened and made more comprehensive. There is a need to find bottlenecks and provide more quantitative information about the effects behind the de- and re-linking processes. A

Discussion

In this article, we have presented concepts and definitions for the linking process, i.e. de-linking/re-linking environmental degradation from/to economic growth, as well as to the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory. In previous literature the concepts of weak (relative) and strong (absolute) de-linking, and re-linking have been presented. In this article, we offered a more detailed conceptual definition for the different degrees of the linking process (see Table 1 above) and defined a

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