Environmental accounts – Chemical indicators 2018
Use of chemical products increased between 2008 and 2018
Statistical news from Statistics Sweden 2020-06-04 9.30
The use of chemical products classified as hazardous to health and the environment, including petroleum fuels, increased by seven percent between 2008 and 2018 in Sweden. This increase mainly occurred in the manufacturing industry and in the mining and quarrying industry, while turnover in other industries decreased. In the same period, GDP increased by 20 percent. This means that chemical intensity, that is, the number of tonnes of chemicals per produced Swedish krona decreased over this period.
In 2018, use of chemicals classified as hazardous to health and the environment, including petroleum fuels, amounted to 19.1 million tonnes in Sweden. This is an increase of 1.2 million tonnes from 2008. The use of petroleum fuels decreased by 1.9 million tonnes, while chemicals classified as hazardous to health and the environment increased by 3.1 million tonnes.
It is important to note that changes over time do not necessarily reflect real volume changes. For example, the chemicals classified as hazardous to health and the environment may have changed.
Source: Statistics Sweden, Environmental accounts and national accounts, and the Swedish Chemicals Agency. Note: Petroleum fuel is hazardous to both health and environmentally, but is shown here as a separate group.
The manufacturing industry is the industry that uses the most chemicals, 12 million tonnes, and also reported the largest increase since 2008, 2.3 million tonnes, in absolute terms. The transport industry and other industries and services also account for a large share of chemicals use.
Source: Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Chemical Agency
However, the highest increase in the period, 52 percent, is in the mining and quarrying industry. At the same time, the value added in this industry decreased by two percent. The development in the manufacturing industry is similar. It is important to note that the mining and quarrying industry is much smaller than the manufacturing industry. This concerns both the use of chemicals (0.26 million tonnes and 12 million tonnes respectively) and the two industries’ contribution to GDP (SEK 19 billion and SEK 532 billion respectively). Among the remaining industries, chemicals use has decreased and value added has increased. In the Swedish economy as a whole, GDP growth increased more than the use of chemical products (20 percent and 7 percent respectively).
Source: Statistics Sweden, Environmental accounts and national accounts, and the Swedish Chemicals Agency.
Definitions and explanations
The Swedish Chemicals Agency supervises the Products Register, in which chemical products are registered and for which there is a time series available from 1992. The primary purpose of the register is to enable supervision of import and manufacturing companies, to monitor national policy and for use by local authorities. The register contains information on which chemicals are used and the quantities.
The indicators published by Statistics Sweden measure the quantities of products classified as hazardous to health and environmentally hazardous according to international criteria. The standard classification of industries is also used (NACE).
Classification is based on Council Directive 67/548/EEC of 27 June 1967 on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances. The Directive has been amended several times. The most recent version, with most changes introduced, is Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008, which introduced a new classification, the Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). From 2015, reporting is only done in accordance with the GHS.
In these statistics, chemical products dangerous to health are classified as Very toxic (T+), Toxic (T), Corrosive (C), Irritant (Xi), and Harmful (Xn) according to KIFS 2005:7, and from 2009 onwards also in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council, concerning products classified as Corrosive (GHS05), Toxic (GHS06), Harmful (GHS07), Health hazard (GHS08), and Environmental hazard (GHS09).
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The next statistical news in this series is scheduled for publishing in 2021.
Feel free to use the facts from this statistical news but remember to state Source: Statistics Sweden.