Consumption based national indicators for use of hazardous chemicals : mixed results for time series

• Risks associated with the use of hazardous chemicals are becoming more apparent. It was forexample recently suggested that the safe operating space of the planetary boundary of novelentities (including hazardous chemicals) is exceeded since annual production and releases areincreasing at a pace that outstrips the global capacity for assessment and monitoring.Consumption based indicators for national emissions of greenhouse gases are now producedregularly, for example as part of the Swedish Official Statistics. Consumption-based nationalindicators the use of hazardous chemicals are however largely lacking. The aim of this studywas to develop times series for three consumption-based indicators for Sweden: use ofpesticides, use of veterinary antibiotics and use of hazardous chemical products. The methodhas previously been developed and described for a single year, but time series for these types ofindicators have to our knowledge never been presented. The indicators were calculated bycombining data from Sweden’s Environmental Accounts with a Multi-Regional Input-OutputDataset (EXIOBASE) which is the same approach as used for calculating Swedish officialstatistics for greenhouse gas emissions. Data for the use of hazardous chemicals were takenfrom regularly updated institutional national and international databases. The results show thatthe use of veterinary antibiotics decreased by about 50 percent whereas the use of pesticidesdecreased by about 10 percent. In contrast, the use of hazardous chemical products increased.Results show that construction (including buildings and infrastructure), is the single largestproduct group for the use of hazardous chemical products followed by retail, real estate andchemical and pharmaceutical. All have increased their use of hazardous chemical productsbetween 2013 and 2019. Results also show that although Sweden is the country that contributesmost to the use of hazardous chemical products for Swedish consumption, the majority comesfrom imported products of which most comes from countries within the European Union. Theresults for the use of hazardous chemical products for Swedish consumption is worrying andsuggests that this needs further follow-up and also policy initiatives. The decreasing trends forthe use of pesticides and veterinary antibiotics, which are areas where there are policies, aremore encouraging.

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