Environmental accounts – Chemical indicators 2016
Chemical products use continued to increase between 2008 and 2016
Statistical news from Statistics Sweden 2018-10-18 9.30
The use, that is, the turnover, of chemical products classified as hazardous to health and the environment, including petroleum fuels, increased by four percent between 2008 and 2016. This increase mainly occurred in the manufacturing industry and the mining and quarrying industry, while turnover in other industries decreased. In the same period, GDP increased by 15 percent. This means that chemical intensity, that is, the number of tonnes of chemicals per produced Swedish krona, decreased during this period.
In 2016, turnover of chemicals classified as hazardous to health and the environment, including petroleum fuels, amounted to 23.6 million tonnes. This is an increase of one million tonnes from 2008. When petroleum fuels are excluded, the increase is 3.3 million tonnes. However, in the same period, petroleum fuels decreased by 2.3 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.
Petroleum fuel is dangerous for both health and the environment but is shown as a separate group here. Source: Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Chemical Agency
The manufacturing industry is the industry that uses the most chemicals, 12.4 million tonnes and also reported the largest increase since 2008, 2.4 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 during this period, 35 percent, is in the mining and quarrying industry. At the same time, value added in this industry decreased by 21 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 (0.25 million tonnes and 12.4 million tonnes respectively) and the two industries’ contribution to GDP (SEK 17 billion and SEK 523 billion respectively). Among the remaining industries, the use of chemicals has decreased. In the Swedish economy as whole, GDP growth increased more than the use of chemical products (15 percent and 4 percent respectively).
Source: Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Chemical Agency
Revisions
Petroleum fuels are included in this year’s statistical publication on chemical indicators. This means that the figures in the results are much higher compared to the publication in the previous year.
Definitions and explanations
The Swedish Chemicals Agency supervises the Products Register, in which chemical products are registered and which has time series available from 1992. The primary purpose of the register is to enable supervision of import and manufacturing companies, to produce statistics and monitor national policy. The register contains information on which chemicals are used and the quantities.
The indicators published at Statistics Sweden measure the quantities of products classified as hazardous to the health and environmentally hazardous according to international criteria. The standard classification of industries is 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. This 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).
Next publishing will be
The next statistical news in this series is scheduled for publishing in 2019.
Feel free to use the facts from this statistical news but remember to state Source: Statistics Sweden.