To reduce society's use of natural resources, actors in policy, business and society require awareness of the relevance of resource use in the context of sustainable development as well as of current unsustainable trends. This article illustrates how monitoring and management of resource use is reflected in international as well as German policies. It describes the development process, structure and key results of the new report series of the German Environment Agency (UBA) called 'Resource Use in Germany'. This series is meant to complement existing statistics and reports by addressing a broad range of stakeholders and making the topic more tangible. The reports should inform and motivate readers to become responsible and active citizens and aim at supporting the implementation of the Resource Efficiency Programme (ProgRess) of the German Federal Government.
Consumers increasingly demand more transparent information about the sustainability performance of products and services. Thus companies aim at measuring and communicating the environmental performance of products. But which indicators enable a consistent measurement of the environmental sustainability of a product? Some major European initiatives have been launched, focusing in most cases on the indicator Carbon Footprint. But the Carbon Footprint does not take into account resource scarcity and tradeoffs between different environmental categories, including the use of raw materials, water and land. In this paper, we present a pilot study assessing a more comprehensive set of indicators, which was conducted in 2008 with a number of Austrian companies. In contrast to the single indicator approach, a set of five indicators was selected and tested for the assessment of the environmental sustainability performance of products: Abiotic Material Rucksack, Biotic Material Rucksack, Water Rucksack, Actual Land Use and Carbon Footprint. In an ongoing Austrian research project, we currently explore, whether this indicator set can be further developed into an integrated and Web-based Business Resource Intensity Index (BRIX).
Mit dem Bericht "Die Nutzung naturlicher Ressourcen - Bericht fur Deutschland 2016" beleuchtet das Umweltbundesamt die aktuelle Situation der Ressourcennutzung in Deutschland. Der Fokus des ersten UBA-Ressourcen-Berichts liegt dabei auf nachwachsenden sowie nicht-nachwachsenden Rohstoffen. Der inhaltliche Bogen wird von der Rohstoffentnahme uber den Rohstoffhandel, der Verwendung von Rohstoffen in der deutschen Wirtschaft bis hin zum Rohstoffkonsum gespannt. Weitere Ressourcen wie Wasser, Flache oder stromende Ressourcen werden in einem separaten Kapitel behandelt. Um ein vollstandiges Bild zu zeichnen, wird nicht nur eine nationale Perspektive eingenommen, sondern auch internationale Aspekte wie Versorgungssicherheit und indirekte Rohstoffnutzung ausfuhrlich behandelt.
