Environmental accounts. Material flow accounts

Domestic material consumption, which measures the annual quantity of solid, liquid and gaseous materials (excluding air and water) used directly by the economy, decreased by 3.3% in 2023, to 417.9 million tonnes.

Resource productivity, or the amount of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) generated per unit of consumption of materials, reached €3,142.9 per tonne, an increase of 6.2% compared with the previous year.

In turn, per capita material consumption decreased by 4.5%, standing at 8.6 tonnes. The net material accumulation in the economy came to 4.4 tons per capita, 4.9% less than the previous year.

The main component of material consumption was domestic extraction, which accounted for 82.4% of the total. It reached 344.1 million tonnes, 3.2% less than in 2022.

The physical trade balance (imports minus exports) was 73.8 million tonnes in 2023. Imports reached 249.2 million tons, compared with 175.4 million for exports.

The main materials extracted in the national territory in 2023 were Non-metallic minerals, mainly limestone, plaster, sand and gravel, followed by Biomass (notably cereals, fruit and vegetables), with 213.3 and 107.5 million tonnes respectively.

Extraction of Non-metallic minerals decreased by 1.6% compared with the previous year, while that of biomass decreased by 8.1%.

Fossil fuels (coal, crude oil, natural gas and derivatives) were the materials that stood out in the 2023 physical trade balance, due to their relative weight in imports (49.4% of the total), followed by Biomass (24.9 %). The materials with the greatest relative weight in exports were Biomass and Fossil energy carriers, with 25.5% and 27.3% of the total, respectively.

Fossil fuels presented the most positive physical trade balance (75.2 million tonnes). Non-metallic minerals showed the most negative one (-26.2 million).

In 2023, the total amount of materials released into the environment following use in the national economy reached 293.0 million tons, a decrease of 4.2% compared with the previous year.

Emissions into the atmosphere (mainly greenhouse gases) were the most prevalent materials in the total (accounting for 90.6%), with a decline of 4.7% in terms of total tonnes compared with the previous year.

Net Material Accumulation measures the physical growth of the economy in tonnes of materials. That is, the proportion of construction materials used in buildings and other infrastructure, and of materials used in durable goods such as vehicles, industrial machinery, etc. It is obtained as the balance between inputs (national extraction, imports and balance sheet items) and outputs (output processed to nature, exports and balance sheet items).

In 2023, 211.6 million tonnes of materials were added to the economy, a total of 6.1 tonnes per capita, a decrease of 3.7% over the previous year.

The data published today is provisional and will be revised when next year's data is released. All results of this operation are available on INEBase.