Material flows and footprints

It tracks how virgin and secondary materials are extracted, imported, processed, and consumed across ‘sectors of final demand.’ It highlights the distribution of raw material consumption across seven sectors, each representing a societal need: Housing and Infrastructure, Services, Mobility, Nutrition, Manufactured Goods, Healthcare and Education, and Communication. This breakdown offers a clear view of how resources flow to meet societal demands.

Circularity metric

Carbon footprint

It uses input-output modeling to account for not only the region’s direct emissions but also those that occur along the supply chain, including the embodied carbon in imported products. This approach differs from a production-based carbon footprint, which only considers emissions produced within the region’s borders, regardless of where the products are consumed. The consumption-based carbon footprint provides a more complete view of the region’s impact on global emissions.

Waste treatment

The waste treatment breakdown illustrates how waste in the region is processed, encompassing methods such as recycling, landfilling, and incineration. It also accounts for imported waste, providing a comprehensive view of how waste is handled within the region. This analysis identifies three primary categories of waste treatment: recycling, recovery, and other. Each of these categories can be further subdivided into more specific processes to give a detailed understanding of waste management practices. Recycling includes preparation for recycling, direct high-quality reuse (where no processing is necessary), and indirect high-quality reuse (where some form of treatment is required before reuse). Recovered waste encompasses microbiological processing, including biological treatments such as composting, anaerobic digestion, and fermentation, as well as incineration with energy recovery. The "other" category refers to landfilling, incineration, and temporary storage before treatment or final disposal.

Renewable energy

This section tracks the share of energy derived from renewable sources, such as wind, solar, and biomass, reflecting progress toward reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Higher renewable energy consumption contributes to a cleaner, more sustainable energy system, supporting both environmental and economic goals in the circular economy.

Water

The demand for clean drinking water is rising, while water scarcity is also intensifying—driven in part by climate change. At the same time, the growing scarcity of raw materials, combined with geopolitical tensions and increasing demand in emerging economies, makes reducing our dependence on these resources more important than ever. Embracing a circular economy helps address these challenges by limiting waste production and minimising environmental harm. The problem of water scarcity leads to a demand for solutions that contribute to efficient water use and reuse. Circular solutions regarding water play an increasingly important role across all industries and especially in sectors where water is an essential part of the production processes. Examples are energy (hydrogen transition), sustainable agriculture and sustainable food production.