Pilot Project on Material Flow Accounts
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Pilot project on Material Flow accounts Grant Agreement No 71401.2007.014-2007.485 Final report December 2008, Vilnius Project Manager Danguole Krepštulienė Chief specialist, Agriculture and Environment Statistics Division Statistics Lithuania Tel. + 370 5 2364 951 E-mail: [email protected] 2 Introduction The increasing rate of material consumption and the resulting environmental impact threats sustainability and additional measures to make use of natural resources more sustainable are necessary. It was already stressed in the Brundtland Commission Report Our common future (1987) that development can be made far less materially intensive and more economically and environmentally efficient. The Goteborg Council adopted the EU Strategy for sustainable development in the year 2001 and one of the six main priorities was formulated – to manage natural resources more responsibly. Decoupling environmental degradation and resource consumption from economic and social development was considered as a key issue in the strategy. A Thematic strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources was published by the European Commission in 2005. Despite the fact that no target figures have been set at this stage, the strategy aims to reduce the negative environmental impact of resource use at each stage of their life cycle and to replace polluting resources with alternatives. Conservation and management of natural resources is recognized as one of the main priorities in the renewed EU strategy for sustainable development (2007) as well. To improve management and to avoid the overexploitation of natural resources is considered as an overall objective. Enhancing of resource efficiency and the reduction of the use of non-renewable natural resources and related environmental impacts, thereby using renewable resources at the rate that does not exceed their regeneration capacity are formulated as operational targets in the resource consumption chapter of the renewed EU strategy for sustainable development. The implementation of the mentioned strategic documents and political decisions increased the need for reliable and comparable information on material use. Despite the fact that the level of current knowledge in cause-effect relations is not sufficient and complex linkages between material flows and their environmental impact are not fully understood, information on material flows use could be considered as an appropriate tool for political decisions in order to make material use more sustainable. In general, for more sustainable material consumption and decoupling of resource use and environmental impact from the economic growth, two main principles – dematerialization and transmaterialization – should be implemented. The implementation of the dematerialization principle (to get more from less) is oriented to increased eco-efficiency (resource productivity), while the implementation of transmaterialization principle – to the substitution of hazardous materials with non-hazardous and non-renewable materials – with renewable ones. Consequently, even if we are not able to formulate exact final goals of sustainability in the field of material use, the current level of our knowledge allows us to identify trends in material consumptions which can be considered as acceptable from the point of sustainability: - increase in material productivity (GDP ratio to DMC); - decrease in the volume of material consumption; - increase in the share of renewable materials (biomass); - increase in self-sufficiency (decrease in the imports share in DMI). Material Flow Accounts (MFA) are considered good indicators of various types of environmental deterioration. The general purpose of Material Flow Accounting is to quantify material inputs and outputs of socio-economic systems. Material Flow Accounting is physical environmental accounting approach which tracks the use of materials by socio-economic systems from their extraction to manufacturing; final use and disposal of emissions and wastes. 3 Implementation of the project This pilot project on material flow accounts for Lithuania has been processed in the frame of the environmental accounting project “Grant Agreement No 71401.2007.014-2007.485 – Environment Statistics and Accounts – Material flow accounts”, financially supported by Eurostat. The main objective of the project (pilot study) was to introduce the implementation of Economy- Wide Material Flow Accounts (hereinafter referred to as the MFA) at Statistics Lithuania, to fill in the Standard Tables of MFA (hereinafter referred to as “the standard tables”). The project was carried out by the specialists from the Agriculture and Environment Statistics, Energy Statistics and Foreign Trade Statistics divisions of Statistics Lithuania. The available data for compiling Domestic Extraction (DE), Imports and Exports, Domestic processed output tables were mapped and Standard Tables of MFA were filled in using the existing data. Besides, the derived indicators – Direct Material Input (DMI), Domestic Material Consumption (DMC), Physical Trade Balance (PTB), Domestic processed output – were calculated. Changes in material flows (description of derived indicators) during 2000-2006 in Lithuania were analysed by an external expert – professor of Vytautas Magnus University R. Juknys. An analysis of material flows was performed on the basis of a black box approach and transformations of materials inside an economic sector were neither accounted nor analyzed. Data from the Eurostat’s report “Economy-wide materials flow account, Resource productivity EU- 15 1990-2004” were used for the comparison and analysis of convergence processes. Identification of the existing data sources for the MFA and producing of the accounts In order to achieve the objectives defined for the project and for better coordination, a Working Group was established. In the preliminary stage of the project the methodological recommendations of Eurostat were studied. Compiling the MFA Statistics Lithuania followed the international methodology standardized by Eurostat Economy-wide Material Flow accounting A compilation guide (Eurostat, 2007) (hereinafter referred to as “the Guide”) and pilot studies carried out in the Member States. The general requirements for the compilation of the MFA were as follows: - only those data must be included which comply with the system boundary definition of the MFA; - all data were measured in the same unit of tonnes; - the compilation must be free of double counts. Each relevant flow has to be accounted for only once. First, the assessment of the statistical data sources of Statistics Lithuania was made in the field of biomass products. Other administrative data sources were also used in the project. 4 Table A: Domestic Extraction (DE) A.1 Biomass Primary crops For the compilation of biomass the data on primary crops were taken from agricultural statistics, based on the harvest survey. Data on harvest were obtained from the reports submitted by agricultural companies and enterprises and surveys of farmers’ and family farms. The data on cereals harvest are available in weight before cleaning and drying and after cleaning and drying. Taking into account recommendations of the Guide i.e. biomass is accounted for at its “as is weight” at the time of harvest data in weight before drying and cleaning were used for filling in standard tables. Data on vegetable harvest are available for vegetables grown in hothouses and in the open. Vegetables include all sorts of cabbage, beet root, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, melons, peas for preservation, greenery and spice vegetables. Fodder root crop harvest includes beet root for fodder and carrots, turnips, swedes, sugar beet. Crop residues An amount of used crop residues was estimated using harvest factors and the recovery rate presented in the Guide. Fodder crops Fodder crops comprised fodder crops from cropland, including maize for silage, clover, alfa alfa for forage, annual and perennial grasses, beets for fodder. The weight of fodder crops was reduced to a moisture content of 15 percent following the requirements of the Guide. Grazed biomass Biomass uptake from grazing can be estimated (see the Guide) applying two different approaches: the ”supply approach” multiplies areas of permanent pastures with annual yield coefficients and the “demand approach“ multiplies annual livestock data with annual feed intake (t per head and year) by different grazing animals. Taking into account that the data on yield of permanent pastures are not available for a number of years in Lithuania, the “demand approach” was used for the estimation of grazed biomass. Wood Data on biomass from forestry, i.e. timber (industrial round wood), wood fuel and other extraction, were obtained from the Directorate General of State Forests, State Forest Survey Service. The quantity of timber was converted into tonnes using density factor 0.659 at 15% moisture content. Fish capture Data on fish catch, in terms of non-cultivated fish, were taken from national fishery statistics, under responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture. Fish production from aquaculture was not considered as domestic extraction. Hunting and gathering Data on hunting are not available in tonnes. The number of animals hunted over a hunting season were obtained from the Ministry of Environment. The quantity of biomass from hunting was calculated on the basis of the number of animals and average weights obtained from literature (Encyclopedia). 5 Statistics on forest