Effective implementation of resource policies requires consistent and robust indicators. An increasing number of national and international strategies focussing on resource efficiency as a means for reaching a green economy call for such indicators. As supply chains of goods and services are increasingly organised on the global level, comprehensive indica-tors taking into account upstream material flows associated with internationally traded products need to be compiled. Particularly in the last few years, the development of con-sumption-based indicators of material use also termed material footprints has made considerable progress. This paper presents a comprehensive review of existing methodol-ogies to calculate material footprint-type indicators. The three prevailing approaches, i.e. environmentally extended input-output analysis (EE-IOA), coefficient approaches based on process analysis data, and hybrid approaches combing elements of EE-IOA and process analysis are presented, existing models using the different approaches discussed, and advantages and disadvantages of each approach identified. We argue that there is still a strong need for improvement of the specific approaches as well as comparability of re-sults, in order to reduce uncertainties. The paper concludes with recommendations for further development covering methodological, data and institutional aspects.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:5680 |
| Date | 16 April 2016 |
| Creators | Lutter, Franz Stephan, Giljum, Stefan, Bruckner, Martin |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Source Sets | Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, PeerReviewed |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) |
| Relation | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.03.012, https://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecological-economics, https://www.elsevier.com/journals/ecological-economics/0921-8009/open-access-options, http://epub.wu.ac.at/5680/ |
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