Resource use matters, but material footprints are a poor way to measure it

What do a tonne of potatoes, gravel, coal, and copper have in common?

一吨土豆、砾石、煤炭和铜有什么共同点？

Not much, except that they all weigh the same, and are treated exactly the same in a metric called the “material footprint”.

没什么，只是它们的重量都相同，并且在称为“材料足迹”的指标中得到完全相同的处理。

The material footprint sums up the weight of all the resources used within an economy.

物质足迹总结了一个经济体中使用的所有资源的重量。

So if a country’s material footprint is 60 million tonnes, it extracts 60 million tonnes of “stuff” per year.

因此，如果一个国家的物质足迹为 6000 万吨，那么它每年会开采 6000 万吨“物质”。

This includes both non-renewable resources like metals and fossil fuels, and “renewable” ones like crops and wood.

这既包括金属和化石燃料等不可再生资源，也包括农作物和木材等“可再生”资源。

The scarcity or environmental impact of different resources is not considered, so every kilogram of stuff is considered just as important as every kilogram of something else.

不考虑不同资源的稀缺性或环境影响，因此每一公斤的东西都被认为与每一公斤其他东西一样重要。

1

1

Some readers may not be familiar with this metric, but it has gained increasing popularity in environmental discussions and international policy.

一些读者可能不熟悉这个指标，但它在环境讨论和国际政策中越来越受欢迎。

It’s included as a key metric in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which is why we have charts on it in our SDG Tracker .

它被作为联合国可持续发展目标的一项关键指标，这就是为什么我们在可持续发展目标追踪器中提供了有关它的图表。

This metric is tracked in per capita terms and is shown in the chart below.

该指标以人均形式进行跟踪，如下图所示。

It is also used in the planetary pressures index by the UN Development Programme, and you’ll find many reports on it by the OECD, European agencies, and others.

联合国开发计划署也将其用于行星压力指数，您会发现经济合作与发展组织、欧洲机构和其他机构提供的许多相关报告。

2

2

However, for reasons I’ll explain in this article, I don’t find this metric helpful in understanding the sustainability of resource use or its environmental impacts.

然而，出于我将在本文中解释的原因，我认为该指标对于理解资源使用的可持续性或其环境影响没有帮助。

I fear that rather than helping us tackle some of our biggest environmental and resource challenges, it obscures our understanding and takes our focus away from the most pressing problems.

我担心它不但不能帮助我们解决一些最大的环境和资源挑战，反而模糊了我们的理解，使我们的注意力从最紧迫的问题上转移开。

There are at least three reasons why we should be measuring and monitoring our resource use:

我们应该衡量和监控资源使用情况至少有三个原因：

Resource use does matter for these reasons, but the material footprint, at best, captures them poorly and, at worst, hides some of the most negative impacts.

由于这些原因，资源使用确实很重要，但物质足迹充其量只能很好地体现这些原因，而最坏的情况则掩盖了一些最负面的影响。

The chart below shows the breakdown of the European Union's material footprint.

下图显示了欧盟物质足迹的细分。

More than 70% is made up of biomass (our food and wood for industry and construction) and non-metallic minerals for construction and infrastructure.

超过 70% 由生物质（用于工业和建筑的食品和木材）以及用于建筑和基础设施的非金属矿物组成。

Biomass is a renewable resource (if managed sustainably).

生物质是一种可再生资源（如果可持续管理）。

I can grow and harvest potatoes, tomatoes, and wheat today and then replant them for next year.

我今天可以种植和收获土豆、西红柿和小麦，然后在明年重新种植它们。

The “net” change in the biomass we produce is often zero over longer timescales; it’s not being depleted like other resources.

在较长的时间尺度内，我们生产的生物量的“净”变化通常为零；它不会像其他资源一样被耗尽。

To compare this in terms of weight to fossil fuels and other minerals, which are not renewable, mixes materials that are too different to be bundled together.

为了将其重量与不可再生的化石燃料和其他矿物进行比较，混合了差异太大而无法捆绑在一起的材料。

Non-metallic minerals, such as gravel — which dominate Europe’s footprint — do not have zero environmental impact.

非金属矿物，例如在欧洲足迹中占主导地位的砾石，对环境的影响并非为零。

Mining for materials such as sand can disrupt ecosystems, disturb riverbeds, and affect natural flood defenses.

开采沙子等材料会破坏生态系统、扰乱河床并影响自然防洪能力。

However, they tend to have a much lower environmental impact than the other categories.

然而，它们对环境的影响往往比其他类别低得多。

As the European Environment Agency puts it :

正如欧洲环境署所说：

“Non-metallic minerals account for a large part of the total material footprint, yet they have less environmental and climate impact than metals and fossil fuels.

“非金属矿物占总材料足迹的很大一部分，但它们对环境和气候的影响比金属和化石燃料要小。

This is because they are mostly composed of inert materials such as gravel, limestone.”

这是因为它们主要由砾石、石灰石等惰性材料组成。”

If we consider a large material footprint problematic, then it follows that we should focus on using less sand, gravel, wood, and limestone.

如果我们认为大量的材料足迹是有问题的，那么我们应该集中精力减少沙子、砾石、木材和石灰石的使用。

However, this would achieve far less in addressing most of the resource constraints and environmental and social impacts that we care about than tackling other (smaller) categories like fossil fuels and particular metal ores.

然而，与解决化石燃料和特定金属矿石等其他（较小）类别相比，这在解决我们关心的大多数资源限制以及环境和社会影响方面所取得的成果要小得多。

Since non-metallic minerals and biomass dominate the EU’s material footprint, we shouldn’t be surprised that housing and food have the biggest impact when we look at the footprint by the end-use sector.

由于非金属矿物和生物质在欧盟的物质足迹中占主导地位，因此当我们审视最终用途部门的足迹时，住房和食品的影响最大也就不足为奇了。

The chart below shows this breakdown: more than half (52%) of the total footprint is linked to housing, and 19% to food.

下图显示了这种细分：总足迹的一半以上 (52%) 与住房有关，19% 与食品有关。

These two sectors alone account for almost three-quarters of the material footprint.

仅这两个部门就占了材料足迹的近四分之三。

Again, most of this is from non-metallic minerals like gravel and sand, and biomass for food (mostly crops).

同样，其中大部分来自非金属矿物，如砾石和沙子，以及食品生物质（主要是农作物）。

A lot of the things some might classify as “non-essential” goods, such as cars, stuff we buy for our homes, and clothing, are small by comparison.

相比之下，许多人可能会归类为“非必需品”的物品，例如汽车、我们为家居购买的物品和衣服，都是很小的东西。

3

3

It’s interesting to read the European Environment Agency’s analysis of what this breakdown means for policy and action.

阅读欧洲环境署对这种细分对政策和行动意味着什么的分析很有趣。

“The very high material footprint of housing means that no significant reduction in the EU’s material footprint can be achieved without addressing our built environment.

“住房的材料足迹非常高，这意味着如果不解决我们的建筑环境问题，就无法显着减少欧盟的材料足迹。

On the other hand, the environmental benefit from avoiding extraction of non-metallic minerals is relatively small.”

另一方面，避免开采非金属矿物带来的环境效益相对较小。”

So, to substantially reduce our material footprint, we need to rethink our homes — maybe the materials we use to build or their size — but the environmental benefits of doing so are pretty small.

因此，为了大幅减少我们的材料足迹，我们需要重新思考我们的家园——也许是我们用来建造的材料或其尺寸——但这样做的环境效益非常小。

Again, that raises the question of why we would make this the focal point of action if there are few benefits.

这再次提出了一个问题：如果没有什么好处，我们为什么要把它作为行动的焦点。

“The potential for a radical reduction of the food sector’s material footprint is rather low as it is composed of food items essential to our societies.

“彻底减少食品行业物质足迹的潜力相当低，因为它由对我们社会至关重要的食品组成。

However, dietary shifts and the management of food waste can contribute to reducing the food sector’s material footprint”.

然而，饮食习惯的转变和食物浪费的管理有助于减少食品行业的物质足迹”。

We need food to eat, so substantially cutting back is hard.

我们需要食物，因此大幅削减食物是很困难的。

The two obvious proposals are reducing food waste and shifting to more plant-based diets (less material-intensive, because you don’t have to produce food for the animals first).

两个明显的建议是减少食物浪费和转向更多以植物为基础的饮食（材料密集程度较低，因为你不必首先为动物生产食物）。

These are both strong recommendations that I have written a lot about before.

这些都是我之前写过很多的强烈建议。

But what’s crucial is that there is already a long list of reasons why we would want to make these changes: the fact that food is responsible for up to one-third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions; that it uses half of the world’s habitable land; that it’s the leading driver of water use, water pollution, biodiversity loss, and deforestation; and the fact that we raise and slaughter more than 70 billion land animals for food every year.

但至关重要的是，我们想要做出这些改变的原因已经有一长串：事实上，食品排放量占世界温室气体排放量的三分之一；它使用了世界上一半的可居住土地；它是用水、水污染、生物多样性丧失和森林砍伐的主要驱动因素；事实上，我们每年饲养和屠宰超过 700 亿只陆地动物作为食物。

All these problems can be improved by shifting to more plant-based diets and reducing food waste.

所有这些问题都可以通过转向更多的植物性饮食和减少食物浪费来改善。

Of all the arguments to make this shift, the “material footprint” is the least convincing.

在所有支持这一转变的论据中，“物质足迹”是最没有说服力的。

When it comes to sustainability, it’s much less obvious why I should care more about the weight of the amount of wheat, corn, or lentils we grow than I do about the ecosystems destroyed, forests cut down, animals raised under cruel conditions, or the rivers polluted.

当谈到可持续性时，为什么我应该更关心我们种植的小麦、玉米或扁豆的重量，而不是生态系统被破坏、森林砍伐、在残酷条件下饲养的动物或被污染的河流，这一点就不那么明显了。

A common explanation for measuring material footprints is that many of us overconsume and need to do so less.

测量物质足迹的一个常见解释是，我们中的许多人过度消耗，需要减少消耗。

On a personal level, I am also very conscious of my consumption.

就个人而言，我对自己的消费也非常有意识。

I think carefully about what I buy and its impact.

我仔细考虑我购买的东西及其影响。

I still wear clothes that are many, many years old, and I hold on to my mobile phone for as long as I can.

我仍然穿着很多很多年前的衣服，并且尽可能长时间地拿着手机。

When I speak to others about this, they often mention the same items and industries: consumer technology and “fast fashion” are always in the spotlight.

当我与其他人谈论这一点时，他们经常提到相同的项目和行业：消费技术和“快时尚”总是成为人们关注的焦点。

But, surprisingly, thinking carefully about these purchases is not advice that follows from looking at material footprints.

但令人惊讶的是，仔细考虑这些购买并不是根据物质足迹得出的建议。

The chart below shows the breakdown of the EU’s material consumption, this time by final product.

下图显示了欧盟材料消耗的细目，这次是按最终产品划分的。

We see that these consumer products account for a very small fraction of the total footprint.

我们发现这些消费品只占总足迹的很小一部分。

4

4

Textiles and clothing (which includes footwear and non-clothing textiles) account for only 1% of the total.

纺织品和服装（包括鞋类和非服装纺织品）仅占总量的1%。

Computers and consumer electronics are just 0.8%.

计算机和消费电子产品仅占0.8%。

Surprisingly, rubber and plastic products are just 0.2%.

令人惊讶的是，橡胶和塑料制品仅为0.2%。

Dramatically reducing our use of items traditionally associated with excess consumption would barely change our material footprint.

大幅减少传统上与过度消费相关的物品的使用几乎不会改变我们的物质足迹。

My sense is that most people are unaware of this.

我的感觉是大多数人都没有意识到这一点。

The material footprint leads us to counterintuitive policy recommendations that many environmentalists would strongly object to.

物质足迹使我们提出了许多环保主义者强烈反对的违反直觉的政策建议。

Here’s the European Environment Agency again :

这是欧洲环境署：

“Services require the lowest material use per euro spent among all domains, followed by clothing and household goods.

“在所有领域中，服务业要求每欧元花费的材料使用量最低，其次是服装和家居用品。

Therefore, consumption patterns directly affect the EU’s material footprint and one way to reduce it is to promote expenditure patterns that are less material intensive.”

因此，消费模式直接影响欧盟的物质足迹，减少物质足迹的方法之一是促进物质密集程度较低的支出模式。”

Spending more money on services than physical “stuff” makes sense if we want to reduce our material footprints.

如果我们想减少物质足迹，那么在服务上投入比在物质“东西”上投入更多的钱是有意义的。

However, since clothing and households also have a low material intensity, we could also reduce our footprint by spending much more on clothes, televisions, phones, and other consumer goods and less on essentials such as food and housing.

然而，由于服装和家庭的物质密集度也较低，我们还可以通过增加在衣服、电视、电话和其他消费品上的支出，减少在食品和住房等必需品上的支出来减少我们的足迹。

“Spend more of your money on clothes and iPhones” to minimize your environmental footprint is not advice I’ve heard before (and is not advice I’d give either).

“把更多的钱花在衣服和 iPhone 上”以尽量减少对环境的影响，这不是我以前听过的建议（也不是我给出的建议）。

Yet this is what the European Environment Agency implies when it suggests “promoting expenditure patterns that are less material-intensive”.

然而，这正是欧洲环境署建议“促进物质密集度较低的支出模式”时所暗示的。

That advice comes directly from the results of material footprints.

该建议直接来自物质足迹的结果。

We send two regular newsletters so you can stay up to date on our work and receive curated highlights from across Our World in Data.

我们定期发送两份时事通讯，以便您及时了解我们的工作并接收来自“我们的数据世界”的精选亮点。

One motivation for measuring material footprints was to extend the focus of sustainability beyond carbon footprints.

测量材料足迹的动机之一是将可持续发展的重点扩展到碳足迹之外。

I share this sentiment.

我也有同样的感受。

I wrote a book about seven environmental problems, and climate change was just one of them.

我写了一本关于七个环境问题的书，气候变化只是其中之一。

However, there are better ways to understand these environmental concerns than summing up the weight of the different resources we use.

然而，有比总结我们使用的不同资源的权重更好的方法来理解这些环境问题。

I have written many articles on measuring sustainability and environmental impacts that go beyond carbon emissions.

我写过许多关于衡量碳排放以外的可持续性和环境影响的文章。

At Our World in Dat a, we have deliberately made our environment section extensive (see our list of topics below).

在《我们的数据世界》中，我们特意扩大了环境部分的范围（请参阅下面的主题列表）。

We’ve covered land use , water use , eutrophication , deforestation , fertilizer overuse , biodiversity loss , food waste , and much more.

我们涵盖了土地利用、水利用、富营养化、森林砍伐、化肥过度使用、生物多样性丧失、食物浪费等等。

Resource use matters, and we need to monitor issues such as the risk of running out of some materials or the mining and socioeconomic impacts of others.

资源使用很重要，我们需要监控一些问题，例如耗尽某些材料的风险或其他材料的采矿和社会经济影响。

There is a lot that we can do to make our economies more material-efficient and to shift from a model of continual extraction to a more circular one where we reuse materials.

我们可以做很多事情来提高我们的经济的材料效率，并从持续提取的模式转变为循环利用材料的模式。

5 I’ve written about this opportunity before as we shift from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy.

5 我之前曾写过有关我们从化石燃料转向低碳能源的机会的文章。

Many metrics — like the ones listed in the screenshot above — do a better job at capturing the negative impacts.

许多指标（如上面屏幕截图中列出的指标）可以更好地捕捉负面影响。

If we’re concerned about the scarcity of copper, we should be tracking how much we use and how much is available.

如果我们担心铜的稀缺性，我们应该跟踪我们的使用量和可用量。

If we’re worried about the environmental and social impacts of mining — water use, pollution, exploitation in supply chains — then we should be tracking these directly.

如果我们担心采矿对环境和社会的影响——用水、污染、供应链中的剥削——那么我们应该直接跟踪这些影响。

However, the material footprint can downplay these issues because metal ores and fossil fuels make up a small fraction of the total in regions like the EU.

然而，材料足迹可以淡化这些问题，因为金属矿石和化石燃料仅占欧盟等地区总量的一小部分。

Despite the many limitations of the material footprint, almost all of the underlying individual indicators are useful.

尽管物质足迹存在许多限制，但几乎所有潜在的单独指标都是有用的。

To calculate the final material footprint, researchers need to know the tonnes of copper, gold, cobalt, gravel, wood, and Atlantic tuna.

为了计算最终的材料足迹，研究人员需要知道铜、金、钴、砾石、木材和大西洋金枪鱼的吨数。

On their own, these datasets are extremely valuable and could help us focus on specific resource challenges.

就其本身而言，这些数据集非常有价值，可以帮助我们专注于特定的资源挑战。

It’s when they’re combined into a single number that this value is lost.

当它们组合成一个数字时，这个值就会丢失。

Comparing resource quantities within a common context can also be informative.

比较共同背景下的资源数量也可以提供丰富的信息。

For example, knowing how much mined materials we’ll need for different energy sources can help us understand some of the implications of the energy transition.

例如，了解不同能源需要多少开采材料可以帮助我们了解能源转型的一些影响。

The same applies to the amount of crops (including feed) required for different dietary choices.

这同样适用于不同饮食选择所需的农作物（包括饲料）的数量。

Knowing how much uranium the world uses each year is useful.

了解世界每年使用多少铀是有用的。

Creating a metric that suggests it should be treated the same as bananas is not.

创建一个指标表明它应该像香蕉一样对待，但事实并非如此。

Thank you to Max Roser and Edouard Mathieu for their valuable comments and suggestions on this article and its visualizations.

感谢 Max Roser 和 Edouard Mathieu 对本文及其可视化提出的宝贵意见和建议。

The Living Planet Index is the biodiversity metric that always claims the headlines.

地球生命力指数是经常成为头条新闻的生物多样性指标。

It’s often misinterpreted.

它经常被误解。

How should we understand it?

我们应该如何理解呢？

An overview of the distribution of critical minerals for clean energy.

清洁能源关键矿物分布概述。

False claims that the world has only 100, 60, or even 30 years of harvests left often hit the headlines.

世界只剩下 100 年、60 年甚至 30 年收成的虚假说法经常成为头条新闻。

Soil erosion is a problem and we can do something about it.

土壤侵蚀是一个问题，我们可以采取一些措施来解决它。

Some models and calculations apply conversion factors, such as ore-to-metal ratios for minerals and metals.

一些模型和计算应用转换因子，例如矿物和金属的矿石与金属的比率。

However, the point remains that things are considered equally, only based on mass.

然而，要点仍然是，事物被平等地考虑，只是基于质量。

United Nations Statistics Division.

联合国统计司。

Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns .

目标 12：确保可持续的消费和生产模式。

UNDP Human Development Report.

开发计划署人类发展报告。

Planetary pressures–adjusted Human Development Index (PHDI) .

行星压力调整后的人类发展指数（PHDI）。

United Nations Development Programme.

联合国开发计划署。

Of course, some of these goods would be considered “essential”: we need some clothes, basic resources in our homes, and transport (even if that’s in the form of public transport or cycling), but many argue that these are sectors where we “overconsume” and some purchases have become non-essential.

当然，其中一些商品被认为是“必需品”：我们需要一些衣服、家里的基本资源和交通（即使是以公共交通或自行车的形式），但许多人认为这些是我们“过度消费”的领域，有些购买已经变得非必需品。

In fact, some footprinting metrics, such as “Domestic material consumption” would still count one tonne of recycled material within the material footprint, hence increasing recycling rates and circularity would not actually help to reduce the footprint.

事实上，一些足迹指标，例如“国内材料消耗”，仍将一吨回收材料计入材料足迹内，因此提高回收率和循环性实际上无助于减少足迹。

Others, such as the material footprint or “Raw material consumption”, do attempt to treat raw extraction and recycled materials separately.

其他的，例如材料足迹或“原材料消耗”，确实尝试分开处理原始提取和回收材料。

However, these flows can be difficult to separate, especially where data availability is challenging.

然而，这些流可能很难分离，特别是在数据可用性具有挑战性的情况下。

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations.

我们的文章和数据可视化依赖于许多不同的人和组织的工作。

When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources.

引用本文时，请同时注明底层数据来源。

This article can be cited as:

这篇文章可以引用为：

We are a live site and we keep our work maintained.

我们是一个活跃的网站，我们会保持我们的工作。

So our articles are often changed, including the data.

所以我们的文章经常改，包括数据。

You can browse previous versions of this work here.

您可以在此处浏览此作品的先前版本。