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Monitoring Resource Efficiency Developments: Indicators, Data, and Trends

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Investing in Resource Efficiency

Abstract

Monitoring resource efficiency developments is important for identifying efficiency potentials, researching the effects of improvements, and building or maintaining political momentum. To this end, this chapter provides an overview of existing indicators and data sources to measure resource use and resource efficiency. Furthermore, recent and historic trends in resource use, trade, prices, and efficiency from global and regional perspectives are shown and discussed, aiming to provide insights into the various resource indicators and what has been achieved so far. Overall, this chapter shows that resource efficiency has increased over time but only slowly and heterogeneously across regions. Crucially, this efficiency improvement has not resulted in a global decrease of resource use in absolute terms.

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Correspondence to Florian Flachenecker .

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Flachenecker, F., Rentschler, J., de Kleuver, W. (2018). Monitoring Resource Efficiency Developments: Indicators, Data, and Trends. In: Flachenecker, F., Rentschler, J. (eds) Investing in Resource Efficiency. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78867-8_3

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