IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jresou/v2y2013i4p608-627d31049.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Environmentally Ineffective Way to Increase Resource Productivity: Evidence from the Italian Case on Transferring the Burden Abroad

Author

Listed:
  • Renato Marra Campanale

    (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Via V. Brancati 48, Rome 00144, Italy)

  • Aldo Femia

    (Italian National Institute of Statistics, Via C. Balbo 16, Rome 00184, Italy)

Abstract

Policy has so far not taken full advantage of the tools offered by the “material flows” school of thought. Resource Productivity (RP) is amongst the normative concepts currently popular among policy makers the nearest one to Material Input Per Service unit (MIPS). However, the RP concept falls substantially short of the MIPS idea, as it puts resource use in relation to the monetary value of production, while MIPS makes reference to services actually delivered by the products. Moreover, the indicator currently used by the European Commission for monitoring RP lacks in life-cycle perspective, which is essential in the MIPS concept. The present paper illustrates, by using Italian case evidence, some of the current RP indicator shortcomings and it discusses a possible alternative, by introducing the life-cycle perspective. In Italy, RP has grown faster than both energy and labour productivity since 1980. This apparently shows that Italy is moving in the right direction. However, a deeper and more extensive analysis regarding the country’s natural resource requirements is necessary before a conclusion can be drawn about the sustainability of the Italian socio-economic process. Therefore, on the one hand we disaggregate material consumption ( i.e. , the denominator of RP) into its components; on the other hand we extend the analysis to overall material requirements, including indirect material flows associated with international trade. These analyses, although limited to used materials ( i.e. , to resource requirements in Raw Material Equivalents), demonstrate that the Italian success in increasing RP is largely due to the transferring abroad of material flows and ecological burden.

Suggested Citation

  • Renato Marra Campanale & Aldo Femia, 2013. "An Environmentally Ineffective Way to Increase Resource Productivity: Evidence from the Italian Case on Transferring the Burden Abroad," Resources, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-20, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:2:y:2013:i:4:p:608-627:d:31049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/2/4/608/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/2/4/608/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yabar, Helmut & Hara, Keishiro & Uwasu, Michinori, 2012. "Comparative assessment of the co-evolution of environmental indicator systems in Japan and China," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 43-51.
    2. Bringezu, Stefan & Schutz, Helmut & Steger, Soren & Baudisch, Jan, 2004. "International comparison of resource use and its relation to economic growth: The development of total material requirement, direct material inputs and hidden flows and the structure of TMR," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 97-124, November.
    3. Leontief, Wassily, 1970. "Environmental Repercussions and the Economic Structure: An Input-Output Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(3), pages 262-271, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefan Giljum & Monika Dittrich & Mirko Lieber & Stephan Lutter, 2014. "Global Patterns of Material Flows and their Socio-Economic and Environmental Implications: A MFA Study on All Countries World-Wide from 1980 to 2009," Resources, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Valero, Alicia & Valero, Antonio & Calvo, Guiomar, 2015. "Using thermodynamics to improve the resource efficiency indicator GDP/DMC," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 110-117.
    2. Matthias Pfaff & Rainer Walz, 2021. "Analysis of the development and structural drivers of raw‐material use in Germany," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(4), pages 1063-1075, August.
    3. Taelim Choi & Randall W. Jackson & Nancey Green Leigh & Christa D. Jensen, 2011. "A Baseline Input—Output Model with Environmental Accounts (IOEA) Applied to E-Waste Recycling," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 34(1), pages 3-33, January.
    4. Daniel Moran & Richard Wood, 2014. "Convergence Between The Eora, Wiod, Exiobase, And Openeu'S Consumption-Based Carbon Accounts," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 245-261, September.
    5. Li, Yilin & Chen, Bin & Li, Chaohui & Li, Zhi & Chen, Guoqian, 2020. "Energy perspective of Sino-US trade imbalance in global supply chains," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    6. Zhu, Bangzhu & Su, Bin & Li, Yingzhu & Ng, Tsan Sheng, 2020. "Embodied energy and intensity in China’s (normal and processing) exports and their driving forces, 2005-2015," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    7. Kumar, Indraneel & Tyner, Wallace E. & Sinha, Kumares C., 2016. "Input–output life cycle environmental assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from utility scale wind energy in the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 294-301.
    8. Yannic Rehm & Lucas Chancel, 2022. "Measuring the Carbon Content of Wealth Evidence from France and Germany," PSE Working Papers halshs-03828939, HAL.
    9. Daniel Croner and Ivan Frankovic, 2018. "A Structural Decomposition Analysis of Global and National Energy Intensity Trends," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    10. Stern, David I., 1997. "Limits to substitution and irreversibility in production and consumption: A neoclassical interpretation of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 197-215, June.
    11. Minihan, Erin S. & Wu, Ziping, 2011. "The Potential Economic and Environmental Costs of GHG Mitigation Measures for Cattle Sectors in Northern Ireland," 85th Annual Conference, April 18-20, 2011, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 108779, Agricultural Economics Society.
    12. Bruckner, Martin & Giljum, Stefan & Fischer, Günther & Tramberend, Sylvia & Börner, Jan, 2018. "The global cropland footprint of the non-food bioeconomy," Discussion Papers 271062, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    13. Eivind Lekve Bjelle & Johannes Többen & Konstantin Stadler & Thomas Kastner & Michaela C. Theurl & Karl-Heinz Erb & Kjartan-Steen Olsen & Kirsten S. Wiebe & Richard Wood, 2020. "Adding country resolution to EXIOBASE: impacts on land use embodied in trade," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, December.
    14. Suh, Sangwon, 2004. "Functions, commodities and environmental impacts in an ecological-economic model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 451-467, April.
    15. Lixiao Zhang & Qiuhong Hu & Fan Zhang, 2014. "Input-Output Modeling for Urban Energy Consumption in Beijing: Dynamics and Comparison," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-11, March.
    16. Robert Ayres, 1995. "Thermodynamics and process analysis for future economic scenarios," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 6(3), pages 207-230, October.
    17. Roca, Jordi & Serrano, Monica, 2007. "Income growth and atmospheric pollution in Spain: An input-output approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 230-242, June.
    18. Su, Bin & Ang, B.W., 2010. "Input-output analysis of CO2 emissions embodied in trade: The effects of spatial aggregation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 10-18, November.
    19. Nakamura, Shinichiro, 1999. "An interindustry approach to analyzing economic and environmental effects of the recycling of waste," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 133-145, January.
    20. Sirkka Koskela & Tuomas Mattila & Riina Antikainen & Ilmo Mäenpää, 2013. "Identifying Key Sectors and Measures for a Transition towards a Low Resource Economy," Resources, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-16, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:2:y:2013:i:4:p:608-627:d:31049. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.