Analysis Of Material Footprint Drivers And Time Change Among Chinese Industries

Since the 1970s,the global economic level has doubled and made great progress,in the meanwhile many people have been lifted out of poverty.The use of natural resources is the foundation for economic development.From 1970 to 2017,the annual global material extraction increased from 27.1 billion tons to 92.1 billion tons(an average annual increase of 2.6%).As one of the world’s largest consumers of natural resources,China’s understanding of the use of natural resources in the Chinese economy is vital to alleviating resource shortages worldwide.We analyzed the relationship between global resource consumption and the economy,and explored the time variation of resource consumption between industries in China.First of all,our research calculated the 26-year material footprint(MF)of 180 countries around the world,then composed panel data with the socio-economic factors of the corresponding countries,evaluated the short-term driving forces of the material footprints of 144 countries between 1990 and 2015,and explored the change law of elasticity between resource consumption and economic growth in different development countries.We then calculated the material footprint of China’s 42 sectors from 1997 to 2015,and identified the key sectors each year from two perspectives.We also used structural path analysis(SPA)to identify key supply chain paths.After that,we analyze the changes of key sectors and key supply chains every year.The results show that economic growth and resource consumption are relatively decoupled,and that material footprint is more sensitive to fixed capital information.The elasticity coefficient of per capita material footprint and per capita GDP has shown an upward trend and then a downward trend in different stages of development.Except for the abnormal appearance of biomass of MF,the change law of remaining categories is the same as the total MF.In addition,from the perspective of direct consumption,non-metal products sector has always been the largest consumer in China’s industry.While from the perspective of indirect consumption,resource consumption has been concentrated in the construction,and the supply chain with the largest resource flow is from non-metal products to the construction.Although the most consuming sectors and supply chains have not changed,in the identified key sectors and supply chains,the proportion of resources consumed by the agricultural sector is decreasing,and it has shifted from the beginning of the supply chain to the middle end;the opposite is the service industry,the proportion of resources consumption has risen.Through the results,we identified four stages of resource consumption driven by economic growth:poverty-slow growth-rapid growth-green development.For this new rule on the quantitative relationship between resource consumption and economic growth,targeted resource utilization policies can be formulated for different stages,especially for developing countries.For the identified resource consumption changes in China’s industry,data can be provided to decision makers in formulating policies specific to industries.