Measuring Natural Resource Use from the Micro to the Macro Level

Abstract

Many of today's most urgent environmental problems are related to the increasing volumes of worldwide production and consumption and the associated use of natural resources. Solid indicators to measure different dimensions of anthropogenic resource use are essential for designing appropriate policy measures for a sustainable management of these resources. Based on a brief review of the current state of the art of resource use indicators, this chapter describes a set of complementary environmental indicators, combining existing measures for the use of materials, water and land as well as emissions of greenhouse gases. This set can be applied consistently from the micro level of products and companies up to the macro level of countries and world regions, where all suggested indicators take a life cycle perspective on production and consumption activities. The set of indicators deals with the issue of the overall scale of the human production and consumption system and can be regarded as a framework of pressure indicators, based on which indicators on different environmental impacts can be derived. Moreover, these pressure indicators are considered as appropriate proxies for the human impact on the environment. The described set of indicators thus covers natural resource use in a comprehensive and complementary manner and can serve as a basis for setting resource-specific targets and evaluating specific resource policies.