Household metabolism in European countries and cities

The concept of household metabolism was applied to enhance the understanding of the environmental impacts of household consumption in cities during the second phase of the ToolSust project. The household metabolism in four European cities was determined in terms of total energy requirements, including the direct and indirect energy requirement. Use was made of the Energy Analysis Program, EAP, developed at IVEM, to calculate the energy requirement of households. Energy intensities of consumer goods, calculated with country specific EAP databases, were combined with expenditure data to determine the total energy requirements of different types of households. The results are compared and the methodology is discussed in this report.