Monitoring the environmental and resource productivity of the economy

A central element of green growth is the environmental and resource efficiency of production and consumption and its evolution over time and space, and across sectors. Understanding this evolution and the factors that drive these changes, is an essential ingredient in developing green growth policies. Progress can be monitored by relating the use of environmental services in production (use of natural resources and materials, including energy, generation of pollutants and other residuals) to the output generated and by tracking decoupling in trends of production and environmental services. Decoupling at the national level can partly be explained by displacement effects - such as the substitution of goods or services produced domestically, and requiring high levels of environmental services, with imports - that don’t necessarily imply decoupling at the global level. Such shortcomings in production based measures can be addressed by focusing on the evolution of efficiencies, or otherwise, in relation to consumption. The main issues of importance to green growth include: .. Carbon and energy productivity that characterises among others interactions with the climate system and the global carbon cycle, and the environmental and economic efficiency with which energy resources are used in production and consumption, and that inform about the results of policies that promote low carbon technologies and cleaner energy. .. Resource productivity that characterises the environmental and economic efficiency with which natural resources and materials are used in production and consumption, and that inform about the results of policies and measures that promote resource productivity and sustainable materials management in all sectors. Important resources and materials include: mineral resources (metallic minerals, industrial minerals, construction minerals) biotic resources (food, feed, wood) water and nutrients that reflect among others interactions with nutrient cycles and food production systems. Other issues of importance include consumer behaviour, and household and government consumption patterns.