trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

6. Imported and Exported Material FlowsBy volume, the biggest imported materials are fossil fuels. Second substantial imported material flow areore, metals and minerals. The hidden flows connected to imported material flows are mostly producedby multipliers obtained from various of sources. The multipliers give a rough estimate about how muchhidden flows are connected to a specific imported material flow quantity. One of the biggest challengefor multipliers is that there are differences between countries as stated before and therefore themultipliers must be country specific e.g. in energy production the use of natural resources depends onthe energy policy of the whole country, if the energy is produced with coal or nuclear power there arevery different effects and demand of natural resources. Thus the multipliers of imported raw materialsand commodities are not so transparent and thus international co-operation to determine themultipliers is needed. Direct and total imported material (including direct and hidden flows) flows toFinland from 1945 to 2007 are presented in figure 3.1401201008060402001945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005Imported DF Imported TFFigure 3.Imported direct and hidden material flows in Finland from 1945 to 2007 (Million tonnes)As can be seen from figure 3 the imported direct material flow increased from 4.4 million tonnes in 1980 to46.3 million tonnes in 2007. At the same period the imported total material flow increased from 18.7 milliontonnes to 119.3 million tonnes. Most increases in these flows have occurred during 1980’s, 1990’s and 2000’s.The trends of both indicators are also constantly growing. Figure 4 present the corresponding exported flows.1601401201008060402001980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007Exported DFExported TFFigure 4.Exported direct and hidden material flows in Finland from 1945 to 2007 (Million tonnes)82