Canadian System of Environmental–Economic Accounts: Intensities and demand-based measures, 2017
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Released: 2021-06-28
Energy use
In 2017, personal expenditure by households continued to be the primary driver for energy use in Canada, initiating 45.1% of total energy use, unchanged from 2016. Demand for international exports initiated 38.9% of energy use in 2017, a slight increase from 38.8% in 2016.
Demand-based measures allocate industrial inputs and residuals (wastes) to the end-user of goods and services, rather than to the producer. Personal expenditure by households is a category of demand that yields both direct and indirect energy use, water use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. An example of direct energy use is the gasoline required by households to drive their car, while an example of indirect energy use is the energy required by refineries and other industries to produce the gasoline purchased by households.
Greenhouse gas emissions
Canada's GHG emissions were largely attributable to direct and indirect emissions resulting from the production of goods and services for international exports (43.3%) and household expenditures (41.5%). As of 2014, exports surpassed household expenditures as the main driver of GHG emissions in the country.
Water use
As for energy use, households were the predominant end user for water in 2017 (50.0%), down from 50.7% in 2015. Delivery of goods and services for international exports initiated 34.7% of water use in 2017, up from 33.9% in 2015. Due to the availability of the source data, the water use estimates are published every two years. For this reason, any comparative analysis will follow that two-year cycle.
Intensities
In 2017, the average direct plus indirect intensity for industrial energy use was 5.05 gigajoules of energy per $1,000 (current dollars) of production. The average direct plus indirect intensity for industrial GHG emissions was 0.37 tonnes emitted per $1,000 of production.
Intensities provide a measure of the economy-wide effect on energy consumption or GHG emissions brought about by a change in the demand for an industry's output. These include both direct and indirect effects. Direct effects measure the inputs required (e.g., energy used) or wastes produced (e.g., GHG emitted) for an extra dollar's worth of output of a given industry. Indirect effects measure the upstream activity required to produce the additional output (each product produced will, in turn, require the production of various goods and services from other industries, yielding indirect effects).
Note to readers
Statistics Canada's physical flow accounts record the annual flows of natural resources, products and residuals between the Canadian economy and the environment. Data are presented to reflect the activities of industries, households and governments. Since they follow the classification system used in Statistics Canada's supply and use tables, it is possible to link these data to gross production and final demand to produce the data presented here. These data are currently available at the national level only.
Data for 2017 from the physical flow accounts are now available for direct plus indirect energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity, by industry (38-10-0098-01) and physical flows by final demand category for energy, greenhouse gas emissions and water (38-10-0010-01). Data from 2009 to 2016 for both of these tables have been revised to reflect updated data on energy use (38-10-0096-01) and greenhouse gas emissions (38-10-0097-01) and to reflect revisions to the supply and use tables (36-10-0478-01). Meanwhile, 2015 data on water use (38-10-0250-01) by final demand category were updated to reflect revisions to the supply and use tables (36-10-0478-01).
The data on intensities by industry provide a measure of the interdependence between an industry, the rest of the economy, and the use of inputs or production of wastes. They should only be considered on a single-year basis (rather than as a time series) since they are based on gross output in current dollars.
Environment and Climate Change Canada is responsible for producing Canada's official National Inventory Report on Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks. This inventory fulfills Canada's reporting obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is consistent with guidelines published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and is the official benchmark for GHG emissions in Canada. National inventories under the UNFCCC and the greenhouse gas accounts under the United Nations System of Environmental–Economic Accounting are based on different methodological frameworks, and this results in different greenhouse gas estimates. For more information on these differences, see the physical flow accounts metadata page (5115) and the infographic, Complementary approaches to reporting Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.
Contact information
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