(27 October 2015) – In the European Union, resource productivity increased from 1.53 €/kg in 2002 to 1.95 €/kg in 2014, an increase of 27.8% in real terms.
Resource productivity quantifies the relation between economic activity (GDP) and the consumption of natural resources (domestic material consumption – DMC) and sheds light on how efficiently natural resources are used.
Between 2002 and 2008, GDP and domestic material consumption grew in parallel in the EU, leading to relatively constant resource productivity. Since 2008, domestic material consumption has fallen considerably, while GDP has grown more moderately, leading to a noticeable increase in resource productivity. In other words, since 2008, the EU has been doing more with less.
In 2014, the highest resource productivity was recorded in Luxembourg (3.94 €/kg), followed by the Netherlands (3.82 €/kg), the United Kingdom (3.28 €/kg), Italy (2.89 €/kg), Spain (2.69 €/kg) and France (2.60 €/kg). At the opposite end of the scale, seven Member States registered resource productivity lower than 1 €/kg: Bulgaria (0.30 €/kg), Romania (0.32 €/kg), Estonia (0.42 €/kg), Latvia (0.49 €/kg), Poland (0.61 €/kg), Lithuania (0.65 €/kg) and Hungary (0.89 €/kg).