trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

points of view means that the use of materials must be reduced in order to minimise adverseenvironmental impacts while at the same time ever diminishing amounts of materials should produce arelatively increasing degree of economic welfare which is distributed in an increasingly equitable manner(Helminen 1998, 38).The Development of Finnish Eco-efficiency has been analysed according to EU guidelines by usingGDP -data and the material flow aggregates of FIN-MFA Accounting System. The trends of GDP/DMIand GDP/TMR are presented in figure 6.21,81,61,41,210,81960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005GDP/DMI GDP/TMRFigure 6. Development of Eco-efficiency of the Finnish Economy (1960=100)Figure 6 gives a quite worrying picture about the development of Finnish Eco-efficiency. Earlier Ecoefficiencyanalysis based on the Malinda Accounting system suggested improvement by Factor 2.2 inEco-Efficiency measured by GDP/DMF (see Hoffrén 2001). The improved FIN-MFA accounts cause thatthe increase in Eco-efficiency is remained much lower that earlier measured. It seems that Finnish Ecoefficiencyhas almost stabized since 1975 and has then only slightly improved. The ecomony-wide Ecoefficiencyanalysis describes only relative changes in input and output variables and forgets the absoluteglobal limits. However, in spite of this shorthcoming Eco-efficiency analysis provides new insight to thefunctioning of an economy as a whole. (e.g. see Hoffrén and Korhonen 2007, Hoffrén 2006)9. ConclusionsThe Finnish domestic material flow indicators are constantly growing. This also case with thedevelopment of material flows of foreign trade. There the main driver has been the growth of hiddenflows (ecological rucksacks). Although most increases in past have occurred during 1980’s, 1990’s and2000’s, their trends seem to be constantly growing. The Finnish DMI and TMR indicators imply noindication of dematerialization or immaterialisation processes as they have been constantly growing.Also the picture about the development of Finnish Eco-efficiency is quite a worrying one. The improvedFIN-MFA accounts cause that the increase in Eco-efficiency is remained much lower that earliermeasured. It seems that Finnish Eco-efficiency has almost stabilized since 1975 and has then onlyslightly improved.84