From resource extraction to manufacturing and construction: flows of stock-building materials in 177 countries from 1900 to 2016

Global material stocks of infrastructure, buildings, machinery and consumer products are growing rapidly, driving emissions and other environmental impacts during materials extraction, processing, construction and waste. However, international data on economy-wide material flows (ew-MFA) currently is limited to national extraction, trade and consumption and does not integrate material processing. Further developments for ew-MFA are required, ranging from more transparent data compilation and uncertainty assessments and improved representation of socio-economic material cycles to large spatio-temporal coverage. We herein present a novel ewMFA database covering 14 major stock-building materials in 177 countries for the period 1900-2016. Included materials are, i.a., concrete, asphalt, bricks, timber, steel, aluminum, copper, other metals, plastics and glass. We developed a high-quality dataset by combining material flow accounting and analysis principles into a consistent 10-step compilation procedure, including the differentiation of processing stages from extraction to construction, as well as systematic uncertainty assessments. We find that global primary gross-additions-to-stock (GASprim) grew exponentially over almost the entire time period, largely in unison with GDP. In the year 2016, 39.7 +/- 6.1 Gt/year of raw materials were extracted, of which 23% turned into waste during processing, resulting in 30.7 +/- 5.7 Gt/year of GASprim. From the 1990s onwards, China outpaced all other countries in terms of annual percapita GASprim and has dominated global dynamics since then. Across all countries, we find that per-capita GASprim and GDP decoupled over time. However, we find no indications for novel economic development pathways which are substantially less material-intensive in terms of stock-building than in the past.

Automated summary

The global material stocks of infrastructure, buildings, machinery, and consumer products are increasing rapidly, with China leading the way in stock-building. However, international data on economy-wide material flows is limited and does not integrate material processing. Further developments are needed to improve data transparency, uncertainty assessments, and the representation of socio-economic material cycles.