UK consumes fewer raw materials than a decade ago

Data from The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals that the amount of “stuff” used in the UK – including food, fuel, metals and building materials – has fallen dramatically since 2001. On average people in the UK used 15 tonnes of material in 2001 compared with just over ten tonnes in 2013. Consumption of raw materials per head in Britain is now among the lowest in Europe, behind only Spain. These figures will spark fresh speculation that Britain and other developed economies have hit ‘peak stuff’. However, the implications of the data are disputed. One expert said the amount the UK consumed has increased since the turn of the millennium, but the ONS counted only raw materials and not finished products that are imported.

3. What do we mean by "material’?"

There are 4 broad categories of materials: biomass (crops, wood and fish), metal ores (iron and non-ferrous metals), non-metallic minerals (such as construction materials) and fossil energy materials (coal, oil and gas). These are presented here in terms of their physical weight, in million metric tonnes (unless otherwise specified).

How much material does the UK produce?

Figure 1 shows that the extraction of raw materials1 in the UK has gradually declined, falling 41.7% from 717.9 million tonnes in 2000 to 418.7 million tonnes in 2013. The sharpest fall was observed in 2009 during the economic downturn, when the quantity extracted decreased by 12.2% compared with the previous year.

Figure 1: Extraction of raw materials, 2000 to 2013 UK Source: Office for National Statistics; Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Eurostat; European Forest Institute; Kentish Cobnuts Association; British Geological Survey Notes: Metal ores are not visible on the figure as less than 10 thousand tonnes have been extracted each year since 2000. Download this chart Figure 1: Extraction of raw materials, 2000 to 2013 Image .csv .xls

The main types of materials extracted are non-metallic minerals such as sand and gravel (113.9 million tonnes in 2013), and limestone and gypsum (58.1 million tonnes in 2013), which are largely used for construction activities. Within the biomass category, a large quantity of fodder crops (56.5 million tonnes in 2013) are produced each year, which are used mainly for animal feed, although in recent years an increasing proportion has been used for producing biogas.

There has been a considerable decline in the extraction of fossil energy materials in the UK since 2000, although the quantity imported has increased. Fossil fuels are still the main source of energy consumed in the UK, accounting for 86.6% of total energy consumption in 2013. Other sources used for energy consumption in the UK include nuclear (7.2% in 2013) and renewable and waste sources (5.6% in 2013).

How much material does the UK import and export?

The UK imports and exports a large quantity of products in raw, semi-manufactured and finished forms ("all stages" of manufacture). These can be grouped into the main material categories outlined above.

More materials are imported than exported and the gap between imports and exports has widened over the 2000 to 2013 period. As the quantity of materials extracted in the UK has also been declining, this suggests that we are becoming more reliant on the production of materials in other countries, which may be related to the reduced cost of sourcing some products from abroad.

However, one of the main drawbacks of grouping imports and exports of products at different stages of manufacture into material categories is that this approach does not take the weight of raw materials extracted to produce the manufactured products into account. To overcome this, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has used a new model developed by Eurostat to estimate the raw material equivalents (RME) of traded goods. For example, using this approach, one tonne of imported steel is transformed into the equivalent of crude iron ore which had to be extracted and processed in order to produce one tonne of steel. This helps to provide a more accurate picture of environmental impact and gives a better indicator of our "global material footprint" (see below).

Figure 2 shows that imports and exports in RME are substantially higher than the same flows measured at all stages of manufacture. In 2000, imports in RME were estimated at 12.1 tonnes per person, 3.2 times higher than imports of products at all stages of manufacture (3.7 tonnes per person). In the same year, exports in RME were estimated at 9.1 tonnes per person, 2.7 times higher than exports of products at all stages of manufacture (3.4 tonnes per person).

Figure 2: Comparison of the weight of traded goods at "all stages" of manufacture and in raw material equivalents (RME), 2000 and 2013 UK Source: HM Revenue and Customs; Office for National Statistics Download this chart Figure 2: Comparison of the weight of traded goods at "all stages" of manufacture and in raw material equivalents (RME), 2000 and 2013 Image .csv .xls

The weight of imports at all stages of manufacture was 4.9 tonnes per person in 2013, 1.3 times higher than in 2000. However, the weight of imports in RME was 6.8% lower in 2013 at 11.3 tonnes per person. The gap between exports at all stages of manufacture and in RME was also narrower in 2013 compared with 2000. The apparent decline in demand for raw material in the manufacturing of products suggests that resource efficiency is improving, perhaps reflecting progress in energy efficiency and production practices as well as in material recycling and re-use.

Notes for What do we mean by "material’?