Economic, Environmental and Societal Significance of the Austrian Municipal and Private Waste and Resource Economy

Through the three main activities of collection, processing and reuse of secondary raw materials, the Austrian waste and resource sector contributes not only to the provision of public services, but also to the development of circular business models and climate protection. Against this background, the study presents a macroeconomic assessment of the Austrian waste and resource economy for 2017 and calculates the employment and value-added effects associated with these activities as well as the potential CO2 emission savings. The calculation is based on the adapted WIFO.DYNK model, which combines data on material flows in the waste sector with monetary values. Taking into account all effects (direct, indirect, induced and secondary raw material use), this results in around 53,000 associated jobs and around 5.1 billion € in value added. Based on international value chains of primary raw materials and their substitution, a CO2 saving of around 8.7 million tonnes was calculated (consumption-based).