Sustainable Trade in Resources: Global Material Flows, Circularity and Trade

Trade is responsible for much larger amounts of material extraction than direct trade flows indicate when accounting for the additional materials, energy, water and land used in the extraction and production of traded goods but left behind as wastes and emissions in the exporting country.

In 2017, the material required for trade was three times the direct trade as more than 35 billion tons of material resources were extracted globally to produce 11 billion tons of directly traded goods. This means that one-third of the total 92 billion tons of material resources extracted in the global economy that year was destined to produce goods for trade.

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