Cristina Frizza
Domestic material consumption measures an economy's apparent consumption of material resources. It is the main indicator derived from material flow accounts, used to measure a country's resource productivity as part of its natural resource policies. In 2025, Italian domestic material consumption will amount to 511 million tons (+2.8% compared to the previous year), and resource productivity will stand at €3.61/kg (-2.2% compared to the previous year).
Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) is the main indicator derived from the Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts (EW-MFA) module. The DMC measures the amount of materials used directly in an economy and is calculated by subtracting exports from direct material input (equal to domestic extraction of materials used plus imports). It represents the quantity of materials that, at the end of the reference period, become part of an economy's material stock (waste in controlled landfills; capital goods, such as buildings, infrastructure, and machinery; consumer durables) or that have been transformed into residual materials that return to the environment (emissions into the atmosphere, water, and soil; wasteful use of products and losses). The DMC is used in turn to construct the efficiency indicator Resource Productivity, which measures the relationship between economic activity and the consumption of natural resources. Resource productivity, defined as the ratio of gross domestic product to domestic material consumption, is one of the main indicators used to monitor circular economy policies.
Monitor the objective of sustainable consumption and production and the occurrence of decoupling between the use of natural resources and economic activity.
Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2011 on European environmental economic accounts.
Economy-wide material flow accounts. Handbook, 2018 edition. Eurostat, Luxembourg, 2018 (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-manuals-and-guidelines/-/KS-GQ-18-006) System of Environmental-Economic Accounting 2012 - Central Framework. United Nations, New York, 2014 (https://seea.un.org/content/seea-central-framework)
Material flows from imports and exports refer to goods traded in international trade. Therefore, the CMI does not include indirect material flows associated with international trade; these flows are calculated as part of the material flows in raw material equivalents.
Eurostat
Eurostat database:
Material flow accounts - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/env_ac_mfa__custom_18626379/default/table
Resource productivity - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/env_ac_rp/default/table?lang=en
National
1995-2025
Internal material consumption (t), Resource productivity (Euro/kg)
EU circular economy monitoring framework
The indicators derived from material flow accounts (EW-MFA) provide information on all physical exchanges between the anthroposphere and the natural environment, with the exception of water and air used as such (i.e., not incorporated into products or residues, such as water used for agricultural irrigation or air used for cooling industrial plants). These exchanges are expressed in terms of mass, and the aggregates are composed exclusively of physical quantities measured by weight. The classification of materials affecting resource extraction, import, and export flows is divided into four main categories (biomass, metal ores, non-metallic minerals, and fossil fuels), to which are added the categories 'other products' and 'waste', which apply only to foreign trade flows. EW-MFA are part of the environmental accounts developed by the European Statistical System, consistent with the fundamental concepts and frameworks of national economic accounting and the guidelines adopted by international organizations for the development of an integrated environmental and economic accounting system. This approach is: i) multi-scale, as it allows for analysis at both the macro (entire economy) and meso (economic activity) levels; ii) multi-dimensional, as it integrates the economic and environmental dimensions.
In 2025, Italy's domestic material consumption (DMC) will amount to 511 million tons, corresponding to a resource productivity value of €3.61/kg. This situation can be considered good when compared to the European average. In fact, the Italian DMC per capita in 2025 will be 8.7 tons, compared to 13.7 tons per capita in Europe, and Italy's resource productivity, at €3.61/kg, is well above the European average (€2.32/kg).
In the period 2000-2025, contrary to the 10% increase in GDP, material consumption decreased by almost 33%. This led to an increase in resource productivity of over 1.4 euros/kg (+64%), outlining an overall improving trend. It should be noted, however, that, apart from the period 2006-2013, when the CMI fell sharply, the environmental variable is strongly coupled to the dynamics of the economic variable (Table 1, Figure 1).
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Table 1: Resource productivity and its components Data source
Eurostat |
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Table 2: Internal material consumption and its components Data source
Eurostat |
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Table 3: Import dependence Data source
ISPRA calculations based on Eurostat data Note
The indicator is constructed as the ratio between imports in physical units and direct material input, by material category. |
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Figure 1: Resource productivity and its components Data source
ISPRA processing based on Eurostat data |
Between 2000 and 2025, resource productivity in the Italian economy increased by 64%, highlighting a progressive efficiency in the use of raw materials per unit of GDP generated. This trend, however, has not been constant: an initial phase of substantial stagnation (2000-2007), characterized by stable values around €2.1/kg, was followed by a rapid acceleration coinciding with the economic and financial crisis. Productivity thus reached peaks of €3.2/kg in the two-year period 2013-2014 and €3.4/kg between 2016 and 2019, a level then recovered in 2022 after the decline caused by the pandemic emergency. The joint analysis of GDP and Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) shows how the evolution of the indicator is strongly linked to economic cycles. While a clear coupling between growth and resource extraction is observed before 2007 and after 2013, the central phase of the period is characterized by a predominantly relative decoupling. In this period, the sharp pre- and post-crisis GDP contraction was reflected in an even more marked collapse of the CMI, driven mainly by the decline in non-metallic minerals in the construction sector (Figure 1, Tables 1 and 2).
Material resources entering an economic system – represented by indicators of domestic extraction and imports in physical terms – can be used directly in the economy (CMI) or exported and used abroad. As with resource productivity, the CMI can be broken down into its components, namely domestic extraction and net imports (Table 2). Italian exports, although not entirely linear, grew throughout the period 1995-2025, recording an overall increase of almost 52% (Table 2). Imports, however, followed a trend more comparable to that of domestic extraction. Indeed, after domestic extraction and imports reached their highest levels in 2007, respectively, both variables reversed their trend. Finally, as shown in Table 3, the Italian economy is highly dependent on imported raw materials. This foreign dependence, derived as a share of direct material input (equal to the sum of domestic extraction and imports), can be calculated by type of material or overall. From 1995 to 2025, dependence on total materials increased from 35.6% to 47.1%. In terms of materials, the Italian economy appears self-sufficient only in construction materials. Biomass dependence increased from a dependence of about a quarter of the total to approximately 38% in recent years. Dependence on imported resources is almost total for metal minerals and fossil fuels.