Material flows around the globe (MF-GLOBE)

From the perspective of environmental sustainability, economies and societies face enormous challenges. Global consumption of renewable and non-renewable raw materials has quadrupled over the past 40 years, causing a number of environmental problems. In the era of globalisation, value chains are organised on the international level and regions such as Europe are increasingly depending on raw material imports from other world regions. In order to evaluate, whether a country or a region is on a sustainability-oriented path towards reduced consumption of natural resources, comprehensive indicators need to be applied, which reach beyond the national borders. Driven by the demand for robust indicators to measure material and energy use, significant advancements have been achieved in recent years regarding the development of databases and methodologies. However, the main indicators derived from these analyses so far do not appropriately consider all material and energy flows. In particular, indirect flows which are required along the international value chains to produce various products, often remain unconsidered. The overall objective of the MF-GLOBE project therefore is to assess global material and energy flows induced by production and consumption activities. Compared to currently existing approaches, this analysis will be realised on an unprecedented level of detail regarding economic sectors and supply chains. Focus is set on products from agriculture and forestry as well as on energy carriers, as the (over)use of these resources is closely connected to a number of global environmental problems and social conflicts, such as climate change, increasing water scarcity or deforestation of tropical forests. Through the innovative integration of existing global datasets from food, energy and trade statistics in both physical and monetary units, the MF-GLOBE project will calculate global material and energy flows on an unprecedented level of scope, detail and robustness, significantly expanding the state of the art in economic-environmental modelling. Based on this newly developed methodology, the MF-GLOBE project will investigate the global impacts of the increasing energetic and material use of biomass (for example, in terms of bio-plastics or bio-diesel) on the imports of agricultural and forestry products and the footprint of Europe and other world regions. The project will also address the question how energy use is distributed across global production chains of vehicles, electronic products or furniture and which role increasing globalisation plays for the energy security of various manufacturing industries. The MF-GLOBE project is a crucial next step in the further development of methods for analysing global material and energy flows and provides key information for decision makers in policy and business regarding priority areas of action for the realisation of a more sustainable economy.

Material flows around the globe (MF-GLOBE) Through the innovative integration of existing global datasets from food, energy and trade statistics, the MF-GLOBE project developed several models to assess global material and energy flows on an unprecedented level of scope, detail and robustness. From the perspective of environmental sustainability, economies and societies face enormous challenges. Global consumption of renewable and non-renewable raw materials has more than trippled over the past 50 years, causing a number of environmental problems. In the era of globalisation, value chains are organised on the international level and Europe is highly dependent on raw material imports from other world regions. In order to evaluate, whether a country is on a sustainability-oriented path towards reduced consumption of natural resources, comprehensive indicators need to be applied, which reach beyond the national borders. Driven by the demand for robust indicators to measure material and energy use, significant advancements have been achieved in recent years regarding the development of databases and methodologies. However, the main indicators derived from these analyses so far do not appropriately consider all material and energy flows. In particular, indirect flows which are required along the international value chains to produce various products, often remain unconsidered. MF-GLOBE aimed at closing some of the research gaps. The project developed FABIO (Food and Agriculture Biomass Input-Output model), a global model covering agricultural and food products. FABIO enables investigating key questions related to our consumption of food and non-food products and the required reduction of negative environmental impacts along global supply chains, such as forest loss or GHG emissions. FABIO is very detailed, distinguishing 125 agricultural and food commodities and 191 countries. FORBIO (Forestry Biomass Input-Output model) is a global model to map international flows of wood and wood products, disaggregating 23 wood and paper products for 221 countries. The project also developed the groundwork for a global energy flow model through transforming information about energy extraction, transformation and use into energy input-output tables for 60 different energy products in 160 countries. The different models were applied in a range of case studies. The MF-GLOBE project laid the ground for further developing methods to analyse global material and energy flows. This research provides key information for decision makers in policy and business regarding priority areas of action for the realisation of a more sustainable economy.