The level of domestic material consumption (DMC) differed greatly among the EU Member States, ranging from 8.3 tonnes per capita in Italy and Spain to 31.1 tonnes per capita in Finland in 2014. Furthermore, the structure of DMC — by main material category — varies between the Member States. The composition of DMC in each Member State is influenced by domestic extraction and by natural endowments with material resources, and the latter may form an important structural element of each economy. Besides the structure of the economy and climatic conditions, population density may explain — at least in part — differences between EU Member States in relation to consumption patterns. More densely populated Member States such as the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy and Malta tend to consume somewhat lower amounts per capita than the EU-28 average whereas higher per capita consumption may be observed for low population density Member States like Finland and Sweden, Eurostat data say.
As for the Czech Republic, it belongs to the group of EU Member States with substantial amounts of fossil fuel consumption, including Estonia (12.4 tonnes per capita, due to oil shale), Greece (6.0 tonnes per capita), Malta (5.8 tonnes per capita), the Czech Republic (5.7 tonnes per capita), Bulgaria (5.5 tonnes per capita) and Germany (5.2 tonnes per capita, due to lignite). Latvia, Croatia and Portugal reported the lowest consumption among the Member States for fossil energy materials, not more than 1.5 tonnes per capita, according to Eurostat.
Also, resource productivity statistics based on 2014 data shows that the index for the Czech Republic (72.7) is below the EU-28 average (100), as well as below scores for Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Austria, for example. Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK reached the highest scores in resource productivity.