Eco-Efficiency of Regions: Toward Reducing Total Material Input

The concept of eco-efficiency is here presented as a valuable contribution to a sustainable regional development in the European Union. Eco-efficiency and dematerialization strategies are more and more established at the business level where practical and easily understandable methods and management tools have been developed and applied in the past years and decades. On this (micro) level, cases have been identified where environmental protection complements job creation and competitiveness. On the regional level the situation is somewhat different. Although sustainable development is increasingly integrated in EU-policies the knowledge about the application of eco-efficiency concepts for the regional level is lagging behind. Therefore this paper aims at setting out: -the principal relevance of eco-efficiency for regions as a contribution for reaching the broader concept of sustainable regional development, -possible fields and sectors of regional policies with a particular suitability for the implementation of eco-efficiency methods, -opportunities and limits of eco-efficiency strategies for regions. -basic methodological steps for the development of a material index at the regional level based on the methodology developed at the level of nations.