EUROPEAN COMMISSION 
Brussels, 20.9.2011 
SEC(2011) 1068 final 
  
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 
On the Progress of the Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources 
{COM(2011) 571 final} 
{SEC(2011) 1067 final}  
 
EN 2   EN 1. INTRODUCTION  
On 21 December 2005 the Commission adopted its  Communication "Thematic Strategy on 
the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources"1 (hereafter referred to as  the Resource Strategy) in 
response to the growing evidence that the in tensive use of world’s resources is putting 
increasing pressure on the planet, and that the current patterns of resource use are threatening 
our future prosperity. This document is a pr ogress report on the implementation of that 
Strategy. The lessons learnt from this anlysis have been fed in to the new Roadmap for a 
Resource Efficient Europe, that is  published at the same time. 
The need to address the challenge of the unsustainable use of natural resources, within and 
outside of the EU, had been re cognised before in several high level policy documents. The 
Sixth Environment Action Programme2 included the sustainable use and management of 
resources as one of the priority areas for action and foresaw the development of a thematic 
strategy on natural resources . The Lisbon Strategy3 and the EU Sustainable Development 
Strategy4 reiterated the need for more efficient use of resources to ensure  sustainable growth 
in the future. 
The Resource Strategy defined the broad meani ng of natural resources  as encompassing all 
raw materials including minerals, biomass a nd biological resources; environmental media 
such as air, water and soil; flow resources su ch as wind, geothermal, tidal and solar energy; 
and space (land). The Strategy recognised that th e environmental impacts of resource use are 
distributed along the value chains of those re sources, often occurring far from where these 
resources are finally consumed. Therefore the Resource Strategy emphasised the need to take 
into account the life-cycle and gl obal perspective when  tackling unsustainable use of natural 
resources. 
The overall objective of the Resource Strategy was to reduce the negative environmental 
impacts generated by the use of natural resources in a growing economy. This is a dual objective which requires: (1) to  decouple the use of a resour ce from its driver (that is, 
economic growth), thus improving resource  productivity and; (2) to decouple the 
environmental impacts from their related resour ce use, also expressed as resource specific 
impacts. For renewable resources this also  means staying below the threshold of over-
exploitation. The achievement of this dual obj ective would mean improving eco-efficiency, or 
resource efficiency. 
In order to reach this overal l objective, the Resource Strategy set the following operational 
objectives: 
• improving our understanding and knowledge of European resource use, its negative 
environmental impact and signi ficance in the EU and globally; 
• developing tools to monitor and report progr ess in the EU, Member States and economic 
sectors; 
                                                
 
1 COM(2005) 670. 
2 Decision 1600/2002/EC 
3 http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_D ata/docs/pressData/en/ec/00100-r1.en0.htm 
4 COM(2001) 264 
 
EN 3   EN • promoting the application of strategic appro aches and processes both in economic sectors 
and in the Member States and encourage them  to develop related plans and programmes, 
and;  
• raising awareness among stakeholders an d citizens of the significant negative 
environmental impact of resource use.  
The Resource Strategy aimed at enabling knowledge  of resource use in the economy to be 
brought together quicker and more  easily. This would facilitate th e identification of the most 
serious environmental impacts and the measures to mitigate them. It called for a strengthening 
of the resource use dimension in existing poli ces as well as for the development of new 
initiatives to integrate life cy cle thinking in policy formulation, setting the time horizon for 
this process in 25 years. The Resource Strategy explicitly avoided setting quantitative targets 
as the level of knowledge and data available at  the time was not sufficient to develop suitable 
indicators and targets. 
This report will evaluate to what extent the ob jectives of the Resource Strategies have been 
met so far: Firstly, it will analyse how the strate gic approach, objectives and principles of the 
Strategy were integrated into policies at EU , Member State and at international levels. 
Secondly, it will evaluate the stat us in the implementation of th e specific actions proposed in 
the Strategy. Finally the report will provi de recommendations for further action.  
The concept of sustainable use of natural re sources attained a new level of strategic 
importance recently. Resource efficiency was r ecognised as critical for further economic 
development in the EU and became a focus of one of the seven flagship initiatives within the 
Europe 2020 Strategy5. This Strategy aims to support th e shift towards a resource efficient 
and low-carbon economy and decouple economic gr owth from resource and energy use. It 
stresses how resource efficiency will prevent environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and 
unsustainable use of re sources. The communication A resource-efficient Europe – Flagship 
initiative under the Europe 2020 Strategy6 sets out a framework to ensure that policies in 
all relevant areas produce resu lts on resource efficiency, with the actions set out in the 
Roadmap for a Resource Efficient Europe . It explains how the focus on resource efficiency 
in policy making is both a necessity and an opport unity for the EU. It argues that coordinated 
action across a wide range of po licy areas is necessary because  of potential synergies and 
trade offs and that the action has to be taken now  due to long lead-times for systemic changes. 
It also emphasises the need for a move toward s resource efficient consumption. This paper, 
which is effectively and analysis on the Them atic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural 
Resources, has been used to inform the Roadmap. 
2. PROGRESS IN THE INTEGRATION OF THE RESOURCE STRATEGY 'S APPROACH AND 
OBJECTIVES INTO OTHER POLICIES  
With its 25 years time horizon and its broad appr oach, the Resource Strategy aimed to ensure 
that relevant sectoral policies encourage sust ainable use of natural re sources. The strategy is 
set as a framework, which lays down principles and concepts to be integrated in or strengthened in existing policie s and used as guidance for emer gning and future initiatives.  
                                                
 
5 COM(2010) 2020 
6 COM(2011) 21 
 
EN 4   EN Six years after its adoption, the Resour ce Strategy's objectives and concepts7 are embedded in 
many policy initiatives. These initiatives within  the EU include transversal ones but also 
cover specific resources and sectors, and both demand and supply aspects. Examples of this 
are given in annex II, together with interesting initiatives outside the EU. 
It can be concluded that the objectives and concepts presented for the first time in the 
Resource Strategy back in 2005 have later on been  referred to in EU policies, however these 
rarely deal with the full se t of concepts proposed by the Resource Strastegy. Even though 
resource efficiency and decoupling are men tioned as such, it is often with only the 
competitiveness aspect in mind while less atten tion is given to the related environmental 
impacts. Moreover, although the Resource St rategy highlights the importance of the 
international dimension, the increasing import of  resources and their related environmental 
impacts outside Europe was not suffic iently addressed in EU policies.  
3. STATE OF IMPLEMENTATION OF  THE SPECIFIC INITIATIVES INCLUDED IN THE 
RESOURCE STRATEGY  
3.1. TO DEVELOP A DATA CENTRE ON NATURAL RESOURCES  
The Resource Strategy called to  set up "a Data Centre for policy-makers to enhance and 
improve the knowledge base on resource use and its environmental impacts". Information is 
often not readily accessible in a usable form fo r policymakers and a central service is needed 
to act as an “information hub” bringing together all available, relevant information, to monitor 
and analyse it and to provid e policy-relevant information to decision makers.  
From the launch of the Resource Strategy, it was decided that ESTAT would act as the Data 
Centre for natural resources, jo intly with the Data Centres fo r products and waste, covering 
the whole life-cycle8, in collaboration with DG Environment, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) 
and the European Environment Agency (EEA).  
The main achievements to date are the following  (1) Improved information flow and increasing c ooperation between the different partners 
of the Data Centre;  
(2) Pulling together existing basi c data on the use of natural resources and its associated 
environmental pressures including socio- economic driving factors and providing 
access to this information to the public, through a web-based information system
9. The 
general purpose is to provide access to existin g basic data at Eurostat and external 
international institutions such as OECD, IEA, FAO and EEA.  
                                                 
7 Sustainable use of natural resources, deco upling, eco-efficiency , life cycle thinking 
8 Through a collaboration agreem ent of three Services of the European Commission (DG ENV, DG 
ESTAT, DG JRC) and the European Environment Agency (EEA), in total ten Data Centres were 
established, as follows: EEA acts as Data Centre fo r air, climate change, wate r, biodiversity and land 
use; JRC acts as Data Centre for soil and fore stry; ESTAT (unit "Environmental Statistics and 
Accounts") acts as the Data Centre for waste, natural resources and products 
9 http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_ex plained/index.php/Environmental_Data_Centre 
_on_Natural_Resources_and_Products 
 
EN 5   EN (3) The "information hub10", a network of internal and external experts and institutes 
providing answers on specific, policy rele vant question to key users like DG 
Environment and other EU bodies  on a short term basis;.  
(4) A clear framework for indicators' developm ent, encompassing different environmental 
impacts at various stages over the life-cy cle (see 3.2. in this report on "To develop 
indicators for measuring progress"). The Re source Strategy moreover implied an extra 
policy demand for the provision of life cycle assessment data and methodology and, 
hence, further pushed for the development of  Life Cycle Assessment data, originally 
conceived as an output of the Integrated Product Policy initiative. A database was 
developed and established by JRC and is s upporting ongoing work at the Data Centre 
on indicator development. 
Despite the above mentioned progr ess, the translati on of knowledge development into policy 
information can be further improved, as can the knowledge on environmental impacts 
throughout the life-cycle. 
3.2. TO DEVELOP INDICATORS FOR MEASURING PROGRESS  
The Resource Strategy expressed the aim of having a headline indicator for environmental 
impacts that could be compared with GDP. Su ch an indicator should measure the decoupling 
of environmental impacts from economic growt h. Further indicators are needed to measure 
progress in achieving the Resource Strategy's oper ational objectives, to steer the focus on 
those resources whose uses cause the most signi ficant environmental impacts, and to enable 
the possibility of setting quantitative targets.  
Measuring specific resource streams is in prin ciple not difficult but measuring environmental 
impact is complex. Work is ongoing by DG Environment11, Eurostat, JRC12 and EEA13 but 
this has not yet resulted in a recommended set of headline indicators. In general, a major 
challenge is to translate a large set of data in to one single value for environmental pressure or 
impact and no indicator so far appears to be the ideal decoupling indicator. The assessments 
have in particular been focusing on the Envi ronmentally-weighted Material Consumption and 
the Ecological Footprint (see further on Annex III) but also on the potential of complementing 
these two with Human Appropr iation of Net Primary Production and Land and Ecosystem 
Accounts in a very small indicator set. 
At present, there are two streams of ongoing de velopment work. One is exploring a set of 
consumption based – footprint like – indicators  on land, materials, wate r and carbon/energy. 
This highlights the most important areas of  resource efficiency and it points to the 
dependency of EU economy on directly and indi rectly imported resources. Data sets are 
however not yet complete. An on-going study on the Assessment of resource efficiency indicators and targets
14 is investigating the feasibility of  various options and should be ready 
to present results early 2012.  
                                                 
10 http://www.eu-smr.eu/infohub/ 
11 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/natres/studies.htm; In particular: 
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/natres/pdf/footprint.pdf. 
12 In particular the development of “Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment”  
(http://lct.jrc.ec.europa.eu/assessment ), by th e JRC in close coordination with ESTAT.  
13 http://www.eea.eur opa.eu/themes  
14 http://resource-indicators.eu-smr.eu/ 
 
EN 6   EN The other line of work, also consumption ba sed, is conducted by JRC, which is working to 
establish aggregated indicators on 8 to 10 environm ental impact categories based on life cycle 
analysis data for the full production and cons umption chains. The coherent framework of 
indicators includes eco-efficien cy/decoupling indicators, basket  of products indicators and 
waste management indicators. This work should deliver first pilot results by the end of 2011. 
Such indicators can be related to GDP or to th e value added of a given sector and, thereby, 
can provide an indication on eco-efficiency, as requested by the Resource Strategy.  
3.3. TO DEVELOP EU APPROACHES AND STRUCTURES FOR RESOURCE EFFICIENCY  
The Resource Strategy foresaw to set up a High-Level Forum to facilitate the development of 
national measures by identifying actions to promote, exchange best practices and to provide 
assistance to Member States. As a prelim inary phase, the Resource Strategy recommended 
Member States to develop their own measures  and programmes to achieve a sustainable use 
of natural resources.  
Very few countries take an integrated approach and have  a dedicated strategic policy 
document for resource efficiency. Instead, some  broad economy-wide types of strategies or 
action plans commonly include references to re source efficiency and sustainable material 
management taking different forms such as, fo r example: national sustainable development 
strategies, national environmen tal strategies/action plans, sustainable consumption and 
production action plans, raw materi als plans and strategies, stra tegies and plans related to 
climate change and economic reform programmes.  It rarely features in national industrial 
competitiveness policies. 
Strategic objectives for resource efficiency te nd to be fairly genera l, often referring to 
sustainable use of natural reso urces, improving energy or resource efficiency, increasing 
waste prevention and recycling, reducing the use of energy a nd water but also improving 
water quality and protecting biodiversity. Ther e are few examples of absolute targets of 
resources used, however some aim at increasing resource/material productivity with a certain 
factor. Only Sweden has stra tegic objectives related to re ducing the global environmental 
impacts of national consumption but the Netherlands has objectives reflecting the 
environmental imapct embodied in trade. There is  a general lack of concrete targets, which 
makes progress monitoring difficult in the long term. Existing ones are most common in the areas of waste, energy, GHG emi ssions, water use and land use for organic farming. Many of 
those are driven by EU requirements but also lo cal conditions can act as  drivers. Linked to 
this, indicators in place mainly d eal with material use, waste, energy use, water and land use. 
Indicators taking into account pressures embedded in impor ted goods are rare and no country 
seem to have indicators on the enviro nmental impacts from resource use. 
More specifically, the energy and waste manage ment/recycling sectors take the sustainable 
material management/ resource efficiency aspects more systematically into account in their policies. The public sector (in the context of Green Public Procurement), building and 
construction, water management, transport a nd food are other policy/consumption areas in 
which resource efficiency often features and ha ve objectives or even targets set in several 
Member States. These objectives aim in most  cases at improving technological efficiency 
rather than addressing co nsumption by managing demand. 
Several Member States have deployed awareness raising initiatives to promote a more 
sustainable use of resources. However, setting up and implementing policies is a much more 
challenging task and experiences at Member St ate level often show that there is no clear 
 
EN 7   EN definition or understanding of the resource conc ept and it is sometimes reduced to materials 
only. Varying ministries are often involved without any coordina ted work and, as a 
consequence, frameworks for national actio n tend to be disperse d, with overlapping and 
unclear responsibilities.  
The EEA has recently conducted a survey of re source efficiency policies in EEA members 
and cooperating countries. Prelim inary, the analysis concludes that Memb er states have a 
need to know how to best in tegrate resource efficiency in to other policies, on policy 
implementation and effectiveness evaluation, how to work with strate gic objectives, setting 
targets and measuring progress and how to use ma rket based instruments in order to give the 
right price signals. Such instruments or measures  are being used in certain countries, which 
often have positive experiences to share. After an initial period in growing understanding and 
starting implementation, the Commission considers that the moment is ripe for the establishment of the High-Level Forum foreseen in the Strategy. Among ot her tasks, the High 
Level Forum should provide assi stance to Member States, by id entifying actions to promote 
the exchange best practices and facilitating the development of further national measures. 
Annex I to this report presents a summary of important initiatives at Member State level. 
3.4. I
NTERNATIONAL PANEL FOR SUSTAINABLE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT  
The “Resource Panel”15 was set up in 2007 under the auspices of the United Nations 
Environment Programme (UNEP) to  provide authorita tive and independent advice to decision 
makers globally, as called for by the Resource Strategy.  
Its members 16are recognised, leading experts in thei r field with good geographic coverage 
and discipline balance. The expa nsion of the panel, to include even more countries, is an 
ongoing process. The Panel is supervised by a Steering Committee, which covers more then 
20 countries and organisations coming from both the developed and developing world. The 
European Commission is a major contributor to the Panel and co-chairs its Steering Committee.  
The Panel conducts policy rele vant assessments, focussing on areas with significant 
environmental impact but at the same time with  possibilities for substantial improvements. It 
has so far finalised and published five reports, "Assessing the environmental impact of 
consumption and production – Priority products and materials"
17, "Assessing Biofuels", 
"Metal stocks in society", "Decoupling the use of natural resources and environmental 
impacts from economic acti vity: Scoping the challenges"  and "Recycling rates of metals: A 
status report" . To measure the impact of the Panel's wo rk, it will suffice to say that the first 
report has been down-loaded over half a million times already since it s publication in June 
2010. 
A recent independent evaluation of the Panel's work  with the first three reports concluded that 
the reports were outstanding, have been produ ced in an independent  way and are highly 
policy relevant. The evaluation ho wever also expressed an impor tant concern, that of the 
necessity to better translate the reports into policy relevant outc omes such as policy measures. 
Outputs of the Panel's work must be more wi dely used as policy recommendations, be better 
disseminated and with a stronger involvement  of governments and other stakeholders. The 
                                                 
15 http://www.unep.fr/scp/rpanel/ http:-NaturalResources.pdf 
16 http://www.unep.fr/scp/rpanel/members.htm 
17 http://www.uneptie.org/scp/publica tions/details.asp?id=WEB/0165/PA 
 
EN 8   EN Commission will use its steering role in the Pa nel to implement this recommendation and to 
further enhance the policy relevance of the Panel's work, in particular, the set of 
recommendations drawn up in its different reports.  It needs to be assessed if the endorsement 
of reports by Member States18 would be desirable. 
The foundation is clearly laid for important asse ssment reports that will be valuable for the 
future development of policy in EU and beyon d. In future, the Panel will not only look at 
relevant resources as such but also take the pe rspective of the services or functions that the 
resource use delivers. Topics to be addr essed during 2012 and 2013 will include "Decoupling 
(Technology and Policy)", "Metals" (covering a wi de range of aspects such as environmental 
impact of metals over the life cycle, geological stock, recycling opportunities and 
technologies, demand scenarios and policy opti ons), "Water Efficien cy", "Sustainable 
management of land and soil resources", "Low-carbon technologies and their impact on environment and resource use", "Translocation of environmental impacts through Trade" and 
"Decoupling in urbanization". 
4. R
ECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER ACTION  
The trends in the natural resour ce use show that the use of resources remains intensive and it 
continues to cause global environmental pr essures that undermin e the basic supportive 
functions of the environment. Despite certai n achievements in resource productivity and 
reduction of resource specific environmental impact s within the EU, there is clearly a need for 
continuous improvement in both these aspects of  resource efficiency. The rationale for a 
strategic guidance at EU level remains.  
The continuous need for a comp rehensive and strategic approach  is supported further by the 
fact that many resources used and consumed in  Europe come from th ird countries and have 
significant amount of embedded impacts affecti ng the resource base and the environment in 
those countries. These indirect impacts of the domestic resource use, the dependency of the 
EU on imported resources and growing competiti on for available resources make the need for 
an effective resource efficiency policy more important than ever. 
The analysis of policies related to resource use at EU and Member State level showed that the 
policy responses driven by the Resource Strategy  had been fragmented and incoherent. Only a 
few countries have a dedicated strategic docum ent on resources. Resource related policies had 
often limited scope and focused on a particular resource, usually waste. Policies sometimes 
lacked clear objectives and effective measures to  increase resource productivity or address the 
associated environmental impacts.  Market based instruments were  not considered or used to 
their full potential. It could be  concluded that the Resource St rategy should be complemented 
by a more detailed guidance from the Commissi on that would facilitat e the development of 
comprehensive and effective policies bot h at EU and Member State level. 
This need was recognised by the EU 2020 Strate gy and the flagship initiative "A Resource-
Efficient Europe" which sets out a framework for future polices related to resource efficiency. 
The initiative emphasised the economic dimension and the need to build synergies in order to 
create new opportunities for economi c growth while reducing resour ce use. It identified the 
main resources and policy areas where resource efficiency needs to be integrated. It also 
                                                 
18 Such as is the case for the Intergovernmental Pa nel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental 
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 
 
EN 9   EN foresees a mix of policy instruments including  market based instruments, stimulation of 
innovation and addressing the consumer dema nd. In line with the Resource Strategy the 
flagship initiative also recogni ses the need to further build the knowledge on the resource use 
and associated environmental impacts as we ll as on an effective policy response. Global 
aspects and the need to deepen  international cooperation on resource e fficiency are recognised 
as well. 
The flagship initiative is followed up with th e "Roadmap for a Resource Efficient Europe", 
published alongside this document. It paves the wa y to specific delivering initiatives such as 
those included in Annex 1 of the flagship and others that may follow in 2012 and beyond, the 
Roadmap proposes actions aimed at increa sed resource productivity and reduction of 
environmental impacts.  
The EU Resource Efficiency policy as defined in the three policy documents mentioned above 
– The EU 2020 Strategy, the flagship initiati ve "A Resource-Efficient Europe" and the 
Roadmap for a Resource-Efficient Europe - prov ide a comprehensive strategic framework for 
sustainable use of natural resources for the EU and for Member States. This policy will 
supersede the Resource Strate gy. There will be no added valu e in maintaining a parallel 
strategic track on the same policy subject. 
The Roadmap for a Resource Efficient Europe, wh ich this document complements, as well as 
the implementing actions which will follow, has taken into account the following lessons learned from the implementation of the Resource Strategy: 
• General integration of the main concepts of the resource strate gy into public policies 
should be fostered, in transversa l and sector specific policies; 
• The role of national policies should be fu rther enhanced. Some Member States have 
exemplary measures in place but many are s till lagging behind. Sharing of best practice 
will be essential. A High-Level Forum or similar structure could facilitate this process.  
• The reports prepared by the Resource Pane l should be more widely used as policy 
recommendations and should see a stronge r involvement of governments and other 
stakeholders. 
• Quantitative targets should be set once data and indicators could back up such a process. 
Setting targets on resource use or related environmental impacts is a complex matter and there are few examples of this on national level.  
• The use of market-based instruments in ma naging natural resources is particularly 
important in order to give correct price signals to economic operators.  
• Priority resources should be identified and addressed by specific and more detailed action 
programmes.  
• The risks of scarcity of natural resources (including bottlenecks of availability and 
inhibiting price increases) shoul d be investigated. It should  be analysed how this can 
influence the objectives and possible implementa tion measures of future policies related to 
resources.  
 
EN 10   EN • Investment in further research is necessary , e.g. on the links betw een resource use and 
environmental impact and on the resource use ou tside of the EU driv en by consumption in 
Europe. 
 
EN 11   EN ANNEX I  
INITIATIVES IN MEMBER STATES LINKED WITH THE SUSTAINABLE 
MANAGEMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES 
1. INTRODUCTION   
The Resource Strategy recommends the member states to develop their own measures and 
programmes to achieve a sustainable use of natu ral resources. The responsibility is however 
left with Member States, to take the strate gy's key concepts into account, when developing 
their national resource policies.  
Member States employ different kinds of initiatives in order to achieve these objectives such 
as strategies, programmes, road maps and market  based instruments and a sample is presented 
below. The measures either cover natural re sources in general or  focus on a specific 
individual or group of resources and they may moreover targ et specific stag es of the life 
cycle. Depending on the aimed resources and life cycle stages, various sectors can be targeted. 
The various initiatives moreove r focus on different economic agents, such as consumers, 
citizens, producers and SMEs, and can aim at changes from the micro to the macro scale. 
Below follows a presentation of some interesti ng examples of member states initiatives on 
various levels. In many cases, the initiatives are too recent to be able to properly assess their 
impact at this stage. This is in no way an e xhaustive list but serves to illustrate the varying 
kinds of approaches taken across the EU. 
2. NATIONAL SECTIONS  
Austria  
The country has experienced relative decoup ling during the period 19 90 to 2007 but with 
continuing increasing domestic material i nput. The strong growth  of imports makes 
estimations of related hidden or indirect material flows a very important topic. 
In order to deal with these issues, the country is developi ng a national resource efficiency 
action plan, which aims to achieve an absolute  decoupling of economic growth from resource 
use and environmental impacts. The plan consid ers equally the reduc tion of environmental 
impacts and the reduction of primary resource  consumption including the potential for 
efficiency gains over the whole life cycle in a systematic way.  
The basic idea is to gain good knowledge on the existing initiatives and develop good contacts 
with the stakeholders involved. It is clear that  several initiatives already exist which address 
certain potentials for efficiency improvements on different stages of the life cycle and the task 
of the action plan is partly to give thes e a common direction and guidance for becoming 
mutually supportive and at  the same time coordinate rele vant stakeholders. New measures 
have also been suggested such as strategies on the level of enterprises,  support of eco-efficient 
innovative technologies, communi cation of efficient technol ogies, techniques and use and 
improvement of indicators and data. 
 
EN 12   EN The aim is to see total resource consumption d ecreasing in absolute in the long term and the 
resource productivity increasing by a factor 4. Domestic Material  Input by material category, 
per GDP and per capita but also Raw Material  Consumption expressed as Raw Material 
Equivalent are used as progress indicators.  
Denmark  
Denmark is set to gradually see a tax reform come into force 2010-2019, which reforms or 
establishes environmental and energy taxes wi th the specific aim of changing behaviour 
towards less resource use by increasing the re lative cost of resource intensive products, 
technologies, energies and habits. 
Industries from all sectors will be affected and so will households but the increase in taxes on 
energy by about 15% will obviously mainly imp act energy-intensive sectors. This tax is 
differentiated between space heating and ener gy used in production processes and it is 
balanced according to the energy content in di fferent fuels. The tax, which is effective for 
diffuse polluting sources, is used in parallel with the EU emission trading scheme, which in 
turn is adapted to a relatively small number of  polluters generating high levels of pollution. 
The instruments thus complement each other a nd considerations will be given to avoid 
double-taxation. Households using fossil fuels for heating will also be affected. A green check 
will be provided to households in order to mitigate a negative short-term impact, instead 
aiming at a neutral one. In the long term, on the contrary, as they adapt their behaviour in 
terms of energy consumption and turn to more energy-efficient technologies and while still 
enjoying the green check, households may well bene fit from the scheme. In addition to this, 
households will benefit from the gl obal shift of taxation burden from labour to energy as the 
tax reform aims at reducing the marginal in come tax for all people active on the labour 
market. 
It has been shown previo usly that energy taxes have not mana ged to have an important impact 
on the transport sector. In the coming reform, this  sector will instead be targeted by a specific 
set of taxes including road pr icing for lorries, tax on vans depending on fuel consumption 
standards, tax on company cars etc, all with th e intention of promoting a shift towards more 
sustainable and low-carbon trans portation modes. Moreover, the 50% rise of the waste water 
tax targeting phosphorus and n itrogen gives incentives to di scharge less polluted water. 
Regarding waste, several changes are foreseen. 
The main difficulty as regards the implementation of the reform as seen from the business is 
the potential impact on the country's economic co mpetitiveness. Taxation is however likely to 
reduce the overall consumption bills and, thus, the production costs, but the timing for this 
may obviously depend on the sector and the re spective potential technology lock-ins. It 
should be mentioned that even though all member  states have energy taxes, only a few have 
CO2 taxes. Sweden and Finland introduced this  jointly with Denmark in the early 90s and 
Slovenia now has a similar tax.  
There are no direct targets on resource use but  the ones to be used are linked to greenhouse 
gas emissions, to recycling and landfill and to the reduction of discharge of phosphorus and 
nitrogen in water. Indicators are closely link ed to these, such as fossil fuel domestic 
consumption, waste generation and water consumption and quality. 
Estonia  
 
EN 13   EN Estonia has adopted several policy documents governing mineral resource extraction, which 
provides the rules and principles  for the exploration, protection and use of the minerals, with 
the purpose of ensuring an economically effi cient and environmentally sound use of the 
earth's crust.  
There is a range of instruments to foster better extraction prac tices as e.g. minimum standards 
for extraction permits, mining land rent, minimu m standards and periods of restoration time 
for disturbed land, national annu al extraction quotas and taxes,  standardised environmental 
impact assessments and extraction volumes re porting. Quantitative targets are being used, 
such as the reuse of construction demoliti on waste from 40% in 2008 to 60% in 2020. 
Specific targets and linked indicators are linke d to rate of consent from local authorities 
allowing extraction activities, reduction in br eaches of extraction regulation due to new 
control system, rate of regular inspection of mining sites, increas ed rate of reuse of various 
by-products from extraction of natural resour ces and of construction demolition waste and 
reduction of waste material from  processing slate gravel. Initia tives are too recent to be 
consistently assessed but they are overall co nsidered as successful even though certain 
guidance is still though t to be too vague.  
Finland  
The 2009 Natural Resource Strategy presents a vision for Finland for 2030 and it promotes 
the concept of using resources in an intellig ent way by aiming at four  key strategic goals; 
becoming a thriving bio-economy generating high a dded value, utilising a nd recycles material 
flows effectively, regional resources genera ting both national added value and local well-
being and, finally, taking initiati ves and leading the way in rela ted topics. While the level of 
domestic resource usage has been stable du ring the last years, the volume of imported 
materials is increasing rapidly. 
The strategy takes a long term and holistic a pproach of the use and conservation of natural 
resources and it does so for a range of resources  (however climate change and water footprint 
are probably the most important environmental impacts for the strategy) and across sector 
borders. It seeks to involve all i ndustrial as well as social sector s. This together  with the fact 
that it integrates resources efficiency with  business opportunities makes it a quite unique 
initiative in Europe even if it is still too early to properly assess its effici ency and impact. It 
however gives future orientation on a range of topics including e.g. enhanced control of the 
material cycle, product-centred resource efficien cy and the interaction between rural areas and 
growth centres.  
As already mentioned, its implementation follows  a work plan, with a step wise iterative 
process working against strategic goals, whic h are being reviewed periodically. A set of 
development projects (e.g. the development of e xpertise on the reserves and characteristics of 
various types of biomaterials, the establishm ent of biorefineries and the development of 
calculation methods and measures to express the use of natural resources and material flows) 
are implemented to translate the strategy's principles into concrete actions. The targets presented are mostly related to municipal waste. 
Germany
 
Since 2002,  Germany is pursuing the target of doubli ng the raw abiotic material productivity 
from 1994 to 2020 (the amount of abiotic primary material used to prod uce one unit of GDP). 
The Ministry of Environment strengthens this even further in their 2008 Resource Efficiency 
 
EN 14   EN Strategy, by promoting the factor 4 (quadrupl ing the resource producti vity) beyond 2020. This 
is a rare attempt in the EU to set quantified targets regarding overall re source use. Based on 
these ambitious targets, policy processes as we ll as practical initiatives are structured. All 
industrial sectors including fi nal consumers and public purcha sers are targeted, but with 
special focus on steel, copper, housing, cons truction and environmental technologies 
industries. 
Fact-finding studies and a dial ogue process have been implemen ted, and other tools have been 
proposed such as strengthening of existing as  well as new limit values for products and 
technologies, strengthening of reporting and labelling requirements, stronger take back 
obligations and minimum recycling quota, green public purchasing, determination of resource 
efficiency potentials in core branches and deve lopment of integrated strategies, analyses of 
resource use and related environmental impacts by branches, material systems and functions.  
The overall raw material productivity in Germ any increased with 35% from 1994 to 2007 and, 
thus, progress remains to be made to reach  the 2020 target. The needed progress becomes 
even more evident if taking into account the la rger hidden flows, or the "backpacks", of the 
increasingly imported finished and semi-finis hed products. Studies atte mpting to take these 
into consideration result in strikingly lower material productivity. Whatever method used, it is 
still too early to separate any impact from the strategy from the general trend. E.g., the recent 
increase in price volatility of imported me tals has resulted in a higher awareness of the 
scarcity of raw materials and th is also drives resource efficien cy regardless of the strategy. 
A major part of the ongoing work  is the development of a number of local initiatives in 
different  Länder . One of them is the Efficient Agen tur set up in North Rhine Westphalia, 
which has developed a tool box with a range of  consulting service, aiming at helping SMEs 
improving their resource efficiency through th eir production processes, avoiding waste and 
hazardous emissions with instant results (as op posed to "just" comply with environmental 
legislation). One of the tools is the so calle d PIUS-check, an auditing system, which allows 
analysing the relevant material flows, co mparing the efficiency of current production 
technology with best available technologie s and to conclude recommendations for 
improvements. Part of the costs of this serv ice is covered by the national clean production 
programme. Since the beginning of the programm e in 2000, more than 500 PIUS-checks have 
been conducted (more than 4% of all SMEs in industrial production) with a substantial 
amount of measures with a pay-back time shorte r than two years were identified. In about 
70% of the PIUS-checks, the suggested measur es include implementa tion of new production 
equipment and in the remaining 30% organisationa l changes. The progress indicators used are 
typically total production cost, raw material  cost, energy consumption, water consumption 
greenhouse-gas emissions. The companies are assi sted in applying for financial support to 
implement the proposed measures. The available funding schemes are an important driver for 
the SMEs to adopt cleaner production methods and more than 40% of the audited SMEs did 
so. It is estimated that, for every eu ro invested, 2.4 Euros were saved.  
The Agentur actively approaches companies that  may benefit from the PIUS-check but in 
about half of the cases th e contact was initiated by the companies themselves.  
This programme has been particularly succe ssful in assisting SME with adopting clean 
production processes and to create greener products  faster, especially in  the metal processing 
and finishing sectors as well as in the food pr ocessing industry. A major success factor is the 
clear communication of transpar ent quantification of costs a nd potential savings linked to 
resource use, on the company level, as opposed  to presenting macroeconomic figures. Success 
 
EN 15   EN can however also be attributed to the good cooperation between industries, industry 
associations, regional government and national institutions as well as the mix of consulting, 
information, dissemination networking and organisational and financial support.  
The Netherlands  
In the Netherlands, with the experience of increasing use of biom ass and the expected 
continuing increase in order to achieve the Dutc h target regarding share of renewable sources 
in the 2020 final energy consumption, impo rts of biomass are becoming increasingly 
important. In order to achieve the national obj ective of 23% of biomass in the energy mix by 
2030, as much as 60-80% of bio-based material would have to be imported. The net reduction 
in greenhouse gas emissions is however questione d in case land-use for biomass is associated 
with clearing forest, with conversio n of peat land as well as w ith high fossil energy inputs for 
machinery, fertilisers and other agrochemicals. The use of biomass must thus meet certain 
sustainability criteria in order not  to shift the environmental burd en to other resources or other 
places, the latter being of particular  importance with increasing imports. 
The Netherlands Standardisation Institute is developing standards to ensure the sustainable 
production of biomass along the whole chain, with  the aim to help companies as well as 
consumers adopting more sustainable consumption patterns. The instrument builds on 
voluntary commitments by companies involved in  the production, processing use of biomass 
and it sets out specific crit eria based on minimum requirements for sustainable biomass 
production. Linked to this is a cer tification system where audits are to be performed in order 
to verify that applicants meet the sustainabi lity criteria regardi ng greenhouse gas emissions, 
competition with food or other local applicatio n, biodiversity, environment, prosperity and 
well-being. The measure is not yet in place but is thought to provide for a transversal and 
systemic approach that consid ers potential impacts of bioma ss production and use on a large 
range of natural resources and the standards are likely to be adopted at a larger scale in the 
upcoming policies on natural re sources management. On the more practical side, the 
flexibility of the certification, especially the provisi ons for small-holders, enables most of the 
companies to get involved in the initiative. The approach will however  most likely run into 
various difficulties which will need to be worked  on to overcome. The main threat is probably 
the difficulty to estimate the complex and interlinked real impacts on natural resources along the whole chain but, likewise, the impacts of the biomass competition with food demand and 
other land uses will pose problems in the actual use of the criteria. 
Once these problems have been overcome, ther e do not seem to be major obstacles in 
transferring this tool to other member states or  even to the EU level,  other than adapting the 
criteria to the specific national contexts.  
Portugal
 
Portugal adopted a law establishi ng the organised waste market in  2009. The aim is to set up 
various online waste transaction platforms which are meant to bring together all producers of 
non-hazardous waste and material  consumers which comply w ith the terms in the Waste 
Framework Directive. The aim is to enhance th e recovery of material s and thereby prolonging 
their life cycle, cutting the demand for raw mate rials and promoting industrial symbiosis. The 
platforms are to be managed by private entities. There are no identified targets, while the broad aim obviously is to reach the targets set out in the EU Waste Framework Directive. No 
indicators to monitor progress are suggested. 
 
EN 16   EN Similar types of instruments have already b een introduced in e.g. UK,  France and Italy and 
also at a regional level in some member states . The implementation of such a tool at the EU 
level should not encounter major difficulties as  the legal framework already exists even 
though there are significant differences in interp retation among member st ates. In particular, 
the up scaling of the waste market for specif ic waste streams to the EU level could be 
considered as the national markets might not be  large enough to make the establishment of a 
market worthwhile. 
Sweden  
Another tax targeting behaviour is already in  place in Sweden, where the carbon dioxide tax 
has resulted in a signif icant reduction of the fossil fuel cons umption. This is in particular the 
result of the adoption of more resource effici ent technologies. The tax was initially introduced 
in 1991 (jointly with Denmark and Finland) and has been progressively tightened since then 
with the last modifications in 2009. Sweden has us ed an explicit strategy of a global shift of 
taxation from labour to energy; however tax reve nues are not labelled for a specific use. In 
this case, it is the release of emissions which is taxed and, hence, the measure primarily addresses the environmental impact  of resource use ev en though in practice it also contributes 
to reduce the actual consumption of resources. There is no specific ta rget for the CO2 tax, 
which is one of several tools to reduce negative  impact on the climate. The overall target for 
the share of renewable energy is 50% by 2020 a nd in the transport sector 10%. Moreover, 
between 2008 and 2020, the energy  intensity should reduce with  20%. The aim is to see a 
reduction of emissions by 40% between 1990 and 2020. The tax is used in parallel with other 
market based instruments such as the certific ates for electricity produced from renewable 
energy sources introduced in 2003 and the EU emission trading scheme. Other existing 
market based instruments could be tightened if considered necessary. 
Changes in the Swedish energy and carbon dioxide taxation are considered to have had a great 
effect on emissions. Estimates indicate that emissions of CO2 in 2000 were at least 5000 k 
tonnes lower than what they would have be en without changes in the 1990s. The tax is 
however not the only contributor to redu ced emissions. Between 2001 and 2006, a Green 
taxation shift was carried out worth slightly  over SEK 17 billion. Legislation and economic 
instruments in the waste management sector as well as support for lo cal climate work by 
investment support have contributed substan tially, together with the green electricity 
certificates system. 
 
EN 17   EN ANNEX II  
EXAMPLES OF IMPLEMENTING TH E OBJECTIVE AND CONCEPTS OF A 
SUSTAINABLE USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES IN POLICIES 
1. EXAMPLES OF INITIATIVE IN THE EU  
The EU Sustainable Development Strategy19 already presented op erational objectives 
related to improved resource efficiency, en vironmental impacts, respecting regeneration 
capacity of renewable natural resources, applying the concept of life-cycle thinking and 
promoting reuse and recycling. 
The Sustainable Consumption and Production/Sustainable Industrial Policy (SCP/SIP)  
Action Plan20 proposes concrete actions to foster th e sustainable use of natural resources, 
including actions on improved re source efficiency. As part of the Action Plan, the European 
Commission is examining the feasibility of including resource efficiency in implementing measures of the Eco-design for the energy-using products Directive
21. This could concern 
for instance increased use of recycled materials/products, improved recyclability and durability of products and less us e of "critical" materials or ma terials with high environmental 
impacts. The Action Plan moreover seeks to strengthen and extend the EU Eco-label 
Regulation
22 and the Energy label Directive23 as well as the use of Green Public 
Procurement .  
The new Waste Framework Directive24 builds further on both Thematic Strategies  on the 
Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste25. It 
makes several elements legally binding, notably the requirement for waste policy to consider 
the whole life-cycle of materials in wast e policy development. The report on the 
implementation of the Thematic Strategy26 includes recommendations to better 'target' waste 
streams incorporating material s having "a negative environmen tal and health impact over 
their entire life cycle". The report also identifi es the main efforts accomplished to "use waste 
as resource". Recycling rates are increasing  in the European Union with significant 
differences between Member States performances 
The Climate and Energy Package27 sets out how to cost-e ffectively cut greenhouse gas 
emissions in absolute terms, within the ETS and outside its scope and, hence, bring about 
absolute decoupling of emissions from growth. Linked to the target of increased renewable 
energy use in transport and the importance that  biofuels will play in the transport area, 
sustainability criteria including greenhouse gas performance, biodi versity and certain types of 
                                                 
19 COM(2007) 642 
20 COM(2008) 397 
21 Directive 2009/125/EC  
22  Regulation (EC) No 66/2010  
23  Directive 2010/30/EU 
24 Directive 2008/98/EC 
25 COM(2005) 666 
26 COM(2011) 13 
27 COM(2008) 30  
 
EN 18   EN land use changes are proposed. The package furthermore creates pressure to improve energy 
efficiency which is addressed directly in the Energy Efficiency Action Plan28.  
EU policies on air quality and air emissions, such as the National Emission Ceilings for 
Certain Atmospheric Pollutants29 and Ambient Air Quality and Cleaner Air for 
Europe30, have been a major driver for reducing the impacts of natural resources. By 
reducing air pollution from industry, e.g., the sust ainable use of resources has been promoted 
and significant reductions in air pollution over the past years ha ve been achieved irrespective 
of the economic growth in the affected sectors.  EU air quality and emission control measures 
are a major driver for eco- innovation and green growth.  
The Recycling Lead Market31 initiative aims at encourag ing demand for products with 
recycled materials that provide a li fe-cycle environmental benefit. The Bio-based Products 
Lead Market32 aims to promote the development of sustainable products from renewable raw 
materials, e.g. bio-based chemi cals and plastic and has seen de velopments in the areas of 
methodology for the sustainability assessment of bio-based products as well as of 
standardisation of methodologies. 
In 2008, the Commission launched The Raw Materials Initiative33, which established an 
integrated strategy to respond to the different challenges related to access to non-energy and 
non-agricultural raw materials. The initiative is based on three pillars: en suring a level playing 
field in access to resources in third countries; fostering sustai nable supply of raw materials 
from European sources and boosting resource e fficiency and promoting recycling. A follow-
up Communication was adopt ed earlier this year, which presen ts actions aimed at meeting the 
EU's future raw mateiral supply needs. The underlying idea of the communication is however 
access to material and the related competitiveness aspect 
The Resource Strategy also explicitly refers to the integrated impact assessments for a 
thorough consideration of economic, social and e nvironmental issues and for the application 
of life-cycle thinking. The approach presented in the European Commission Guidelines on 
Impact Assessment34 is built on these general concepts and it requires the consideration of 
the interactions betw een natural resources. 
The Communication on water scarcity a nd droughts in the European Union35 aims at 
ensuring sustainable water availability. It calls for policies to ensure that human activities do 
not contribute to the pressure on scarce wate r resources and it stresses the need to adapt 
economic activities to the level of  water available locally. It poi nts out how priority should be 
given to water savings and wate r efficiency measures. Only if the functioning of the water 
cycle is fully considered, will water quantity issues be efficiently addressed. It recommends 
                                                 
28 COM(2006) 545 
29 Directive 2001/81/EC 
30 Directive 2008/50/EC 
31 COM(2007) 860,  
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/innovation/po licy/lead-market-initiative/recycling/index_en.htm 
32 COM (2007) 860;  
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/innov ation/policy/lead-market-initiative/biobased-
products/index_en.htm 
33 COM(2008) 699 
34 SEC(2009) 92 
35 COM(2007) 414 
 
EN 19   EN integrating further water issues into all sectoral policies to ensure coherence across policy 
areas. 
Sectoral policies offer opportunitites to foster di ffusion and further integr ation of the different 
concepts. Appropriate examples in this respec t are the transport and agricultural sectors, 
which both cover a range of resources. Transport  policy36 focuses largely on energy use and 
air emission reductions but does not seem to fully acknowledge the importance of the impacts 
related to the land use when developing transpor t infrastructure. The c oncept of decoupling is 
not referred to as such but is reflected by the recognition of the need to ensure mitigation of 
adverse environmental impacts. The optimisation of transport systems accounting for impacts of the different transport modes shows an underl ying life cycle thinking  while eco-efficiency 
is present in the form of energy efficiency. 
Agricultural  policy
37 takes into account a wide range of affected resources, and the efficient 
use of water, soil, land and bi otic resources is an  obvious precondition for a more sustainable 
agricultural sector. Decoupling is again not referre d to directly but is reflected in the move 
towards reduced environmental impacts. Ther e is no specific mentioning of a life cycle 
approach but the necessity to develop more integrated policies, taking into account resource and environmental concerns, is recognized.,As an example of a resource specific policy 
highly relevant to the agricultural sector, the Soil Thematic Strategy
38 aims at preventing 
further soil degradation while ensuring a sustainable use.  
The 6th and 7th Research Framework Programmes39 have been funding a number of 
research projects aiming at supporting the implem entation of resource policies, notably in the 
areas of Life Cycle Assessment methodology improvement, eco-design, industrial ecology, 
waste prevention, recycling, bio-refine ries and sustainable consumption. 
2. EXAMPLES OF INITIATIVES OUTSIDE THE EU 
Outside Europe, Japan appears to  have realised that its high  dependency on raw materials, 
combined with the significant environmental problems linked to the shortage of final disposal sites, made it necessary to apply sustaina ble materials management. The 3R initiative
40, with a 
set of laws and action plans, provides a core legislative framework based on life cycle thinking and the integration of resource, waste and product pol icies which has resulted in 
Japan today being a leading example of abso lute decoupling between economic growth and 
material use.  
Largely inspired by Japanese and previous European experiences, the Chinese Circular 
Economy Promotion Law from 2008
41 aims at developing this paradigm across sectors and 
resources through a core strategic framework, with the purpose of simultaneously raising 
resource utilisation rates, managing waste,  protecting and improving environment, and 
achieving sustainable development.  The design of a core legisla tive framework as a basis for 
                                                 
36 COM(2006) 314 
37 COM(2008) 306 
38 COM(2006) 231. 
39 http://cordis.europa.eu/fp6/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.FP6HomePage  
 http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html 
40 http://www.env.go.jp/recy cle/3r/en/approach.html 
41 http://www.fdi.gov.cn/pu b/FDI_EN/Laws/law_en_i nfo.jsp?docid=97504  
 
EN 20   EN future environmental legisla tion is remarkable in compar ison with many countries that 
confine to non-binding guideline s or strategic documents.  
 
EN 21   EN ANNEX III  
EXAMPLES OF INDICATORS MEASURING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT 
• Environmentally-weighted Material Consumption  (EMC) attempts to combine information 
on mass flow with life cycle assessment. Focusing on pressures,  however, it can only 
provide a proxy for related impacts. Moreover, aggregation and the necessary weighting of 
the pressure categories need further development and possible addition of pressure categories such as biodiversity loss is needed. 
• Ecological Footprint
, (EF), combines information from use of renewable material with 
CO 2 emissions and land use and it aims at calculating how much biologically productive 
land and sea area is required to provide the resources consumed and to absorb the waste 
generated by a human population. It has reache d high visibility and calc ulations are carried 
out for all countries in the wo rld, in time series since 1961. De spite its very comprehensive 
benchmark - land area – which results in a god communicative tool, there are several 
methodological weaknesses such as its li mited scope which excludes certain key 
environmental impacts and the tool is widely disputed by a good part of the scientific and 
statistical communities for its analytical power.