Circular Economy
Resource Productivity
Definition
Resource productivity is the ratio of economic output (GDP) to material input, conventionally measured as GDP divided by domestic material consumption in tonnes. It is the EU's headline circular economy indicator and the standard measure of whether economies are extracting more value from each tonne of material — rising where efficiency, recycling and service-based models advance.
References
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This reference provides supporting context for how “Resource Productivity” is defined and used.
Overview
How it is used
The indicator is used in EU monitoring (Circular Economy Monitoring Framework), resource efficiency policy targets, and corporate resource-efficiency benchmarking.
Why it matters
Resource productivity is the operational measure of decoupling on the materials side — the number to watch, alongside emissions intensity, to see whether growth is genuinely dematerialising.