The internationally standardised method for the measurement and analysis of raw material use on the national level is called Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounting and Analysis (EW-MFA).
Indicators derived from the EW-MFA accounts inform about the overall physical size of an economy and can be set in relation to economic indicators, allowing assessments of material productivity and the decoupling performance of countries. They are particularly useful for monitoring overarching policy goals and targets, such as those defined in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The interactive figure below illustrates the different EW-MFA indicators and their interrelationships in the context of the material balance on the national level. All illustrated indicators refer to materials that are economically used, i.e. become a physical part of a production output.
Other EW-MFA indicators also include materials that are extracted or moved in extraction processes but do not become part of a product. Indicators including this ‘unused material extraction’ are not included in the figure.
Move the mouse over a specific indicator to learn more about the questions each indicator addresses, its underlying data sources and the methods to calculate the indicator.