Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.1 Goal of This Publication

(1) How This Publication is Put together

This data book is a revision to the Material Flow Data Book: World Resource Flows around Japan (CGER－D022－'99), published in March 1999. The main changes from the 1999 edition are the addition of trade data from 1998, the inclusion of this English translation of the main text, and the inclusion of trade-flow maps and trade matrices on electronic media (CD-ROM).

This data book consists of Chapter I – Introduction; Chapter II – Method for Creating Trade-flow Map/Trade Matrix; Chapter III – Trade-flow Maps; and the included CD-ROM. Due to limitations of space, most of the trade-flow maps and trade matrices are contained on the CD-ROM; a portion of the trade-flow maps are printed in Chapter III.

The figures contained in Chapter III and the CD-ROM are the core of the data book. These figures contain data on the trade of major resources, extracted and tabulated from UN Trade Statistics, and presented in map and table form. Chapter II gives an overview of the method used to create the trade-flow maps and trade matrices contained in this publication. This data book presents data on material flows in terms of weight. In the UN Trade Statistics, however, sometimes only monetary amounts are reported, and some countries use different units of quantity measurement. Chapter II describes the statistical method used to covert these values into units of weight. Chapter III contains a collection of maps, and is put together in such a way as to allow an overview of the trade flows of major resources between worldwide regional blocks. For some commodities, a trade-flow map for trade among the Asian countries was added. In addition to the trade-flow maps, the included CD-ROM also contains trade matrices.

This chapter (Chapter I) contains some brief explanatory notes for interpreting the figures in this data book. Section1.1 describes the purpose of this publication, including the background of and need for the preparation of data on material flows, as well as the involvement of the National Institute for Environmental Studies in this issue. Section1.2 defines the significance of the import and export of resources for Japan, and contains a figure and some brief explanatory notes in order to get an overview of material flows in Japan. Section1.3 describes the characteristics of the resource trade-flow data contained in Chapter III and the CD-ROM, focusing on the role of Japanese imports and exports in the world and the recent changes in Asia.

(2) A Society of Mass Production, Mass Consumption, and Mass Disposal, and Environmental Issues

Japan and the other industrialized nations take large quantities of resources from the natural environment, and process them into a wide variety of products. By consuming these products, our lives are made richer and more convenient. Meanwhile, however, pollutants produced at the production and consumption stages, and waste produced by consumed products, returns to the environment. The scale of this cycle of material between people and the environment far exceeds the environment’s capacity to regenerate its resources and clean up our waste. Accumulation of carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is changing the global climate. Forested area is shrinking as trees are harvested for fuel, building materials, paper and the like. These are prime examples of how huge human-induced flows of materials are changing the environment on the global scale. At a local level, we are running out of space for landfills, and the incinerators for reducing the quantity of waste encounter the environmental pollution with dioxins. In other words, the majority of today’s environmental issues are linked to our socio-economic system of mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal.

Perspectives are widening from the traditional focus on pollution, toward more global environmental issues and sustainable development. It has thus come to be realized how important it is to have a quantitative measure of natural resources and the environment. The realization that the quantity of available resources and the environment’s carrying capacity are limited is one of the fundamental awarenesses for discussing sustainable development. Chapter 4, “Changing Consumption Patterns” of Agenda 21, which was adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit, points out that the current pattern of production and consumption of the industrialized nations is not sustainable. More recently, the Johannesburg Declaration made at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) stated the need to change our patterns of production and consumption, and protect and manage our natural resources. In Japan, a Basic Environmental Plan was formulated in 1994, based on the Basic Environment Law. This plan calls into question the socio-economic activities and lifestyles of mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal, and declares the need to change to sustainable production and consumption patterns, advocating a heightened awareness of the dangers of pursuing material wealth alone. Additionally, in 2000 the Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society was established, with the goal of changing from the current economy fueled by mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal to a closed-loop economy.

(3) The National Institute for Environmental Studies’ Involvement in Material Flow Accounting

Thus, today’s society and economy are characterized by huge quantities of materials. In order to analyze the relationship between society/the economy and environmental issues, it is necessary to systematically track the flow of materials and energy between the natural environment and economic activities, and among the various major economic sectors. Environmental resource accounting, and Material Flow Accounting/Analysis (MFA) in particular, is a powerful tool for accomplishing this goal. For more than 10 years, the National Institute for Environmental Studies has researched environmental resource accounting via the Global Environmental Research Fund. Japan depends on large amounts of imports of natural resources, and is the world’s fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. For this reason, it is particularly vital for Japan to reflect global issues in its environmental resource accounting, and we have thus focused our efforts on preparing data to enable this. The data on the trade of natural resources contained in this data book was created in this process.

Meanwhile, there is an active commitment to Material Flow Accounting in Europe and other countries, and communication and joint research is taking place on the international level. In November 1995, SCOPE (Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment), which was leading a research project to develop indicators for measuring the achievement level of sustainable development, held an expert workshop in Wuppertal, Germany. At the workshop, it was concluded that Material Flow Analysis was one of the most important fields of indicator development. The workshop spurred four of the attending institutions to launch an international comparative research project on material flows. These four institutions were Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies, Germany’s Wuppertal Institute, the United States’ World Resources Institute, and the Netherlands’ Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. 1996 was spent creating a common framework for analysis and gathering data, and in April 1997, the four institutions jointly published their results¹⁾. Then in the fall of 2000, the results of the second period of research were published by 5 countries (Austria joined the group)²⁾.

(4) “Hidden Flows” and the Latent Meaning of Resource Trade

This international joint research project is based on the Material Flow Accounting framework developed by the Wuppertal Institute. The initial stage of the project focused on tracking the flow of resources from the natural environment (the Ecosphere) to the sphere of human activity (the Anthroposphere), by cross-sectioning the flow of resources at the boundary of these two spheres. This was due to a focus on the issues of resource depletion and allocation, and the consideration for the fact that all collected resources are potential waste, and the association between resource flows in general and a host of types of environmental impact.

The biggest feature of this framework is the focus on “hidden flows.” This refers to flows of materials that are not caught by conventional means of tracking material flows, because although they are harvested by people, they are not considered to be commodities. Taking mining as an example, the quantity of soil and stone removed during the mining process, and impurities removed when the ore is processed, is much larger than the quantity of refined ore that actually enters the economy. For countries like Japan depending on imports for the majority of their mineral resources, this type of waste produced by the countries supplying the resources does not show up on any table. This is a typical case of a “hidden flow.” It should be understood that more resources are being consumed than the imports we actually see. Other examples are the additional lumber harvested for wood products, and the feed given to livestock. Note that the term “hidden flow” is the English translation of the Wuppertal Institute’s (German) term “Ecological Rucksack”, which was accepted by the international joint research project.

A similar concept has been incorporated into the framework of the ecological footprint analysis³⁾ advocated by Wackernagel et al. An “ecological footprint” signifies the imprint left on the earth by human activity, and is calculated as the area required to supply resources and clean up pollution. This concept is an attempt at measuring the size of the impact of human activities on the environment. Large areas of land in the United States and other countries around the world are used to produce the agricultural products that Japan imports, and the ecological footprint is suited to expressing this situation.

The considerations used to select resource-trade data to incorporate in this data book include these hidden flows and the concept of the ecological footprint, as well as absolute quantities imported by Japan (e.g. fossil fuels and iron ore). This criteria applies to meats, grains, non-ferrous metals and the like.

(5) Using this Data Book

The goal of this data book is to provide a reference for thinking about resource-related environmental issues, recognizing Japan’s place in worldwide resource trade. It therefore includes a large number of color maps based on the collected data, in order to facilitate an intuitive understanding. Additionally, the numerical data used to create these figures is also included, in order to enable its use in model analysis incorporating trade data and other research studies. Meanwhile, companies are starting to trace material procurement as part of their Life-Cycle Assessments and other environmental evaluations, and one issue in this is grasping the environmental impact of natural resources procured abroad. We believe that this data book will be a useful reference in this field as well.

1.2 Overview of Japan’s Material Flows

Although the main focus of this data book is facilitating the understanding of the place of Japanese imports in the world, it is also essential to get an overall understanding of material flows inside Japan, and the place of imported resources within these flows. Thus, we will here summarize the data relating to material flows in Japan, and compare it internationally.

Over the past decade, there has been a call in Japan for the need to get a grasp of material flows in the country as a whole, mainly from the point of view of promoting recycling. Since the fiscal 1993 edition, the Japanese Environment Agency’s Environmental White Paper has included calculations of the material balance. The information in this publication is based on the data that the authors prepared as part of the above-mentioned international joint research project, and the Environmental White Paper has used the same calculation methods since the fiscal 1997 version.

According to the fiscal 2002 edition of the Environmental White Paper, a total of about 1,120 million tons of resources taken from the natural environment in Japan that year. Adding to this the approximately 710 million tons of imported resources, and the 70 million tons of imported products, a total of about 1,900 million tons of new materials entered the Japanese economy that year. By weight, about 40% of these new sources are imports. Adding to these materials the flow of recycled resources, approximately 2,100 million tons of materials passed through the Japanese economy.

Fig. I-1 shows the balance between materials input into the Anthroposphere from the environment, and the materials output from the Anthroposphere into the environment. On the output side, what is generally tracked as “waste” includes about 50 million tons of municipal solid waste, and about 400 million tons of industrial waste. As industrial sludge, livestock manure, and the like contain considerable amounts of water, the dry weight of this waste is considerably lower. The input resources outweighs the output wastes. Some of this remainder is returned to the environment in a form not normally considered waste, and some remains stockpiled in the Anthroposphere.

Of the material flows that return to the Ecosphere from the Anthroposphere in a form other than waste, the largest is the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels. Because carbon dioxide is emitted into the air in a gas state, it is hard to get an intuitive sense of how much is being released. Performing this type of calculation, however, shows that carbon dioxide, currently the focus of much attention for its contribution to global warming, is actually humankind’s most weighty waste product. In addition, the food that we eat, and the agricultural products fed to livestock, are emitted into the Ecosphere by human and animal respiratory and excretory systems, mainly as carbon dioxide and water. There are also materials produced by humans whose use presupposes that they will be emitted into the environment. These include fertilizers, agricultural chemicals, and solvents for paints.

Thus, about 700 million tons of resources flow from the Anthroposphere to the Ecosphere in a number of forms. Further, 110 million tons enter the Anthropospheres of other countries as exports. Correcting the balance of resource flows for water, the remaining approximately 1,200 million tons remains in the Anthroposphere, adding to human stockpiles. Most of these stockpiled resources take the form of buildings and other structures, i.e. roads, bridges, dams, river embankments, waterworks, sewage　systems, and other public works (infrastructure), office buildings, houses, factories, and the like. These stockpiles also include increased ownership of cars, appliances, furniture and other durable consumer goods, stocks of plant equipment, and the like. Most of these durable goods are disassembled and discarded after their lifetime has ended, and so these increased stockpiles are actually latent waste.

Fig.I-1 Material Balance in Japan (1995, in millions of tons)

1.3 Overview of Global Resource Trade Flows

This section provides an overview of the characteristics of the trade of natural resources between the various regions of the world, based on the worldwide trade-flow maps in Chapter III of this publication and the included CD-ROM. Particular focus is placed on the role of Japanese imports and exports in this flow. As this overview focuses on the flow of resources between the world’s regional blocks, intra-block trade (e.g. trade between European nations) does not appear on the maps. Information about intra-block trade can be obtained from the trade matrices contained on the CD-ROM. Additionally, the arrows from one regional block to another represent the balance of trade; in most cases, resources are actually being traded in both directions. This can also be confirmed in the trade matrices on the CD-ROM. Note that the printing of historical trends was minimized, in order to reduce the number of color-print pages. Trade-flow maps showing historical trends of major commodities can also be found on the CD-ROM.

Note that this data book focuses on trade-flows of resources taken from the Ecosphere, and materials with low levels of processing. Data on machinery, chemicals, and other commodities with high levels of processing have been excluded. Resources are exported from resource producers to resource consumers with little or no processing, but are also exported as highly processed products. Recently, exports of products have been trending upward. Home appliances in particular were once mostly domestically manufactured, but in recent years, an increasing number of them are being imported.

For this reason, it is necessary to take note of the hidden resource consumption behind trade of highly processed products, in order to accurately ascertain resource consumption. This topic, however, will be left for a future opportunity.

(1) Total Worldwide Material Flow

Figs. 1-A to 1-D show trends in worldwide trade of the following three main types of resource from 1983 to 1998: fossil fuels, biomass (agricultural, forestry, and marine resources), and base metals. Of these, the largest flow in terms of quantity is fossil fuels. The flow of exports from the oil-producing countries of western Asia to Japan and Europe is particularly notable. Other noticeable trends are the increase of imports to other Asian countries besides Japan (fossil fuels and metals), and the increase of exports (metals) from South America.

Figs. 2-A to 2-D show flows of biomass broken down into food and wood resources, and flows of base metals broken down into ferrous and non-ferrous metals, excluding fossil fuels, which dominate the figures above. These figures show that North America is a major source of non-fossil fuel resources. Additionally, the southern hemisphere – e.g. Australia, South America, and Africa – is a major supplier of base metals. Japan, along with Europe, is shown to be a clear net importer of resources. The figures also point to an increase of imports of base metals into Asia in recent years. This is to be discussed in (4), below.

(2) Flow of Food Resources

Figs. 3 to 8 show the flow of food resources. Figs. 3 and 4 show trade in meats, classified into beef, chicken, pork, mutton, and other. Although Japan’s imports make up a rather small proportion of worldwide trade in food commodities, this amount has been growing in recent years. Trade on a worldwide level is on the rise. Although Europe and North America do import some foods, they stand out as overall suppliers. Figs. 5 and 6 show trade in fish and shellfish. Japan’s imports make up a large part of total trade, and the levels of imports are growing rapidly. Additionally, other Asian countries besides Japan are also becoming more involved in trade in this area. Figs. 7 and 8 show trade in grains, classified into wheat, maze, rice, barley, and other. It is clear from the data that North America is a major exporter to other regions worldwide. Although Japan is also an importer, since the flow to other regions is also large, its relative contribution to total trade in this area is small.

(3) Flow of Wood Resources

Fig. 9 shows trade of wood resources, classified into roundwood, sawnwood, wood manufactures, pulpwood (e.g. woodchips), pulp, and paper. Japan imports wood in many forms from North America, Southeast Asia, Australia, the former Soviet Union, and other countries. Thus, its wood imports make up a fairly large proportion of total world trade. In addition to Japan, Europe is also a major importer of wood resources, and although not shown in the figure, there is also a great deal of trade within Western Europe. In recent years, Asian countries other than Japan have been increasing their imports of pulp and paper from North America.

Figs. 10A-D show historical trends in the Asian region. In Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia stand out for their export levels. Additionally, while in the past most exports were in the form of roundwood, recently levels of such processed products as sawnwood and plywood, pulp, and paper have been rising, and this also applies to imports to Japan from these countries. In addition to Japan, the growth of imports to Korea and China has been striking.

(4) Flow of Metal Resources

Figs. 11 to 16 show the flow of metal resources. Firstly, Fig. 11 shows trade of iron ore, steel, and scrap iron. Australia and South America are major exporters of iron ore, while Japan and Western Europe are major importers. In recent years, imports to Asian countries other than Japan have also been rising. Japan and Western Europe are major exporters of steel; imports of iron ore to these regions are being exported as steel. Another notable trend has been the increase of steel exports to countries in the Asian region other than Japan, and this region also imports scrap iron from North America and Western Europe.

Fig. 12 shows a detailed view of the Asian region. As can be seen in the figure, India and the Philippines are also producers of iron ore, and export to Japan and Korea. Steel exports from Japan reach many Asian nations. In recent years, imports of iron ore and scrap iron to Korea have been on the rise, and as a result, Korea has begun to export steel to Japan and China. Additionally, imports of iron ore and steel to China are surging, and its trading partners are numerous. As mentioned at the beginning of this section, it must also be noted that steel travels the world in many processed forms, i.e. as industrial machinery, automobiles, ships, and other transportation machines, and other products.

Fig. 13 shows trade of aluminum ore (bauxite), alumina, and aluminum (including refined aluminum). Australia, South America, and Africa are major producers of bauxite, and export bauxite and alumina to consumption/processing centers in Japan, Western Europe, North America, and the like. As typified by exports from Australia to Japan, however, in recent years more exports have been in the form of refined metal aluminum from the producing country. In the case of Japan, the large amount of electric power required to refine aluminum is prohibitively expensive in Japan, leading to this shift in trade pattern.

Fig. 14 shows trade in base metals other than iron and aluminum. Trade is classified and tabulated in terms of ore, and refined metal. As with iron and aluminum, Australia, South America, and Africa are producers of this category, and are major exporters as well. Additionally, Japan and Western Europe are net importers? in this case as well.

Fig. 15 shows trade in base-metal ore, classified as copper, nickel, zinc, lead, and others. Imports of copper and nickel ore to Japan make up a large proportion of worldwide trade. Europe is also a major importer of zinc and other ores. Although Asian countries besides Japan export copper and nickel ore to Japan, in recent years their imports from other regions have been on the rise.

Fig. 16 shows a breakdown of trade in the refined versions of these metals. In terms of producers, South America and Africa are major exporters of copper, while Australia is a major exporter of lead and zinc. In recent years, exports from the former Soviet Union are also being seen. Although Japan imports refined copper from a number of regions, it is an exporter of copper to the Asian region. Aside from copper, imports of the refined versions of these metals to Japan are small, showing that unlike the example of aluminum, above, these metals are being refined domestically. There is a similar trend between Western Europe and Japan, in that Western Europe is a large importer of these metals, and also an exporter to the Asian region. The Asian region other than Japan is characterized by importing from around the world.

(5) Flow of Fossil Fuel Resources

Fig. 17 shows trade in fossil fuels, broken down into coal, petroleum (both crude oil and petroleum products), and natural gas. As is well known, Western Asia is a major exporter of petroleum. Other exporters include the former Soviet Union, South America, and Africa. Coal exporters include Australia, North America, and Eastern Europe, while Japan and Western Europe are importers. As natural gas cannot be transported without a pipeline or liquefaction plant, trade is limited to countries with these facilities. Japan imports liquid natural gas from Indonesia and other countries.

REFERENCES

Cited Reference

1) Adriaanse, A., Bringezu, S., Hammond, A., Moriguchi, Y., Rodenburg, E., Rogich, D., & Schuetz, H. (1997): Resource Flows - Material Basis for Industrial Economies -, joint publication by World Resources Institute, Wuppertal Institute, Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment, and National Institute for Environmental Studies, World Resources Institute, 66pp.

2) Matthews E., Amann, C., Bringezu, S., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Huettler, W., Kleijn, R., Moriguchi, Y., Ottke, C., Rodenburg, E., Rogich, D., Shandl, H., Schuetz, H., van der Voet, E., and Weisz, H. (2000), The Weight of Nations –Material outflows from industrial Economies-, World Resources Institute, Washington D.C., 125pp

3) Wackernagel, M. & Rees, W. (1995): Our Ecological Footprint, New Society Publishers, 160pp.