Analyzing Changes in Supply Risks for Abiotic Resources over Time with the ESSENZ Method—A Data Update and Critical Reflection

Vanessa Bach, Markus Berger, Natalia Finogenova and Matthias Finkbeiner
Additional contact information
Vanessa Bach: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Chair of Sustainable Engineering, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Markus Berger: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Chair of Sustainable Engineering, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Natalia Finogenova: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Chair of Sustainable Engineering, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Matthias Finkbeiner: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Chair of Sustainable Engineering, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany

Resources, 2019, vol. 8, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: In the last decade, several methods were developed to determine potential supply risks due to short term socio-economic aspects. One of them is the ESSENZ method (comprehensive method to measure and assess resource efficiency of products in the context of sustainable development) developed by the authors. Due to newly available data (e.g., production statistics) the characterization factors (CFs) of the ESSENZ method were updated (based on data from the years 2011 to 2015, with focus on 2014 and 2015) and compared with the original CFs (based on data from the years 2009 to 2013, with focus on 2012 and 2013) for six of the overall eleven categories. The goal of the paper is to analyze if changes in the underlying data are adequately reflected in the CFs of ESSENZ for the considered categories. Further, the updated CFs are provided. The six categories are analyzed by comparing original and updated CFs and clustering them into four groups: declining, emerging, persistent, and non-occurring potential supply risks. Significant differences in the CFs are evaluated by analyzing changes in the underlying data as well as the steps to determine the CFs. It could be shown, that for most of the considered categories and resources changes in the underlying data are reflected adequately in the CFs. However, some methodological challenges of ESSENZ, which limit the reflection of potential supply risks changes, could also be identified.

Keywords: supply risk; socio-economic availability; criticality; abiotic resources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/8/2/83/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/8/2/83/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:8:y:2019:i:2:p:83-:d:227226

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().