Question reference: S6W-13771
- Date lodged: 11 January 2023
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Current status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 January 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason Zero Waste Scotland has published two different material footprint estimates for Scotland in the Scottish Material Flow Accounts and the The Circularity Gap Report Scotland, which estimate Scotland’s material footprint to be 19.3 tonnes per capita and 21.7 tonnes per capita respectively, and which figure it considers to be more accurate.
Answer
Zero Waste Scotland commissions updates to the Scottish Material Flow Accounts to allow for a consistent time-series analysis from the data; these updates provide consolidated data for a variety of stakeholders such as academic and third-sector organisations.
To supplement this research, Zero Waste Scotland also commissioned the Circularity Gap Report (CGR) which was developed by Circle Economy. The methodology used in the CGR allows more detailed inferences to be drawn on the structure of material flows within the Scottish economy. Additionally, as the methodology used in the CGR is consistently applied across multiple countries, it allows the opportunity to compare Scotland’s performance to other nations.
It is Zero Waste Scotland’s view that one estimate cannot be considered more accurate than the other.