Material flow accounting of Spain

Abstract

Material throughput is a means of measuring the so-called social metabolism, or physical dimensions of a society's consumption, and can be taken as an indirect and approximate indicator of sustainability. Material flow accounting can be used to test the dematerialisation hypothesis, the idea that technological progress causes a decrease in total material used (strong dematerialisation) or material used per monetary unit of output (weak dematerialisation). This paper sets out the results of a material flow analysis for Spain for the period from 1980 to 2000. The analysis reveals that neither strong nor weak dematerialisation took place during the period analysed. Although the population did not increase considerably, materials mobilised by the Spanish economy (DMI) increased by 85% in absolute terms, surpassing GDP growth. In addition, Spain became more dependent on external trade in physical terms. In fact, its imports are more than twice the amount of its exports in terms of weight.

The Spanish Transition to Industrial Metabolism: Long‐Term Material Flow Analysis (1860–2010)

“…To date, we have a reconstruction of EW‐MFA indicators for the case of Spain between 1980 and 2000 (Cañellas et al ), as well as a relevant study of the metabolism of the Spanish economy between 1955 and 2000, which has demonstrated the great sociometabolic transition that took place during this period (Carpintero ). In energy terms, it has been documented how the country underwent a later transition than other Atlantic European countries (Gales et al ).…”

Energy Intensity of the Catalan Construction Sector

“…In the past two decades, MFA has been applied on the national (Carlsson et al. 2008; Cañellas et al. 2004), cross‐country (Adriaanse et al.…”

“…MFA is used to identify and quantify the consumption of natural resources associated with economic evolution from a biophysical point of view and based on the mass balance principle. In the past two decades, MFA has been applied on the national (Carlsson et al 2008;Cañellas et al 2004), crosscountry (Adriaanse et al 1997;Eurostat 2001;Weisz et al 2006), regional (Kovanda et al 2009;McEvoy et al 2004), city (Tanikawa and Hashimoto 2009), and industrial or sectoral levels Hashimoto et al 2007;Mutha et al 2006;Sendra et al 2007;Tanimoto et al 2010) in order to quantify material use within specified boundaries. In addition to MFA, exergy accounting is a rapidly evolving approach with respect to process analysis and resource accounting (Dewulf et al 2007).…”

Environmental accounting as a management tool in the Mediterranean context: The Spanish economy during the last 20 years

“…Therefore, the origin of the main imported eMergy flows for Spain is the oil and natural gas extracting countries (Nigeria, Algeria and some Middle Eastern countries), whose economies are mainly based on raw materials exports. As a result, Spain could be considered as a net importer of raw materials, with a high increase in the use of energy and matter, promoting a kind of false dematerialization by moving the environmental loading required by its growth to countries that supply raw materials (Muradian et al, 2002;Ramos Martı´n, 2001Can˜ellas et al, 2004;Carpintero, 2005).…”