Ressourceneffizienz in der Reduktionswirtschaft – Erweiterung betrieblicher Ressourceneffizienz-Indikatoren um kreislaufwirtschaftliche Aspekte

Increasing resource efficiency has become one of the main sustainability related objectives for economy and society. At a political level the importance of resource efficiency gets visible by the European Union’s ‘Raw materials initiative’. In order to measure the resource use and the improvements resulting from resource efficiency initiatives at the micro and macro level, it is essential to provide expressive indicators which go beyond the efficiency principle and include the concept of ecological compatibility. The aim of this article is to discuss the relevance of the compatibility principle and to enhance traditional resource efficiency indicators by involving aspects of waste and recycling management. The suggested indicator set for manufacturing, recycling and waste disposal companies includes a differentiation between technospheric and ecospheric resource efficiency, the input and output categories ‘reducts’ and ‘non-product-output’ as well as the term environmentally compatible output.