At a general level, it would be desirable to gain knowledge of all green house gas emissions and the processes responsible for them. More specifically, at the industry level it would be beneficial to know which emission changes are due to efficiency improvements, demand changes, or the international relocation of activities. With more of such fine-grained information available, innovation policy could be better informed and evaluated as it would be easier to attribute efficiency improvements or demand changes to specific policy frameworks or R&I funding activities. The actually available data is more raw, but rapidly evolving: The annual European Union greenhouse gas inventory provides emission trends for the main sectors (with a two-year time lag) and allows for comparisons of emissions between different countries and activities. Sector specific information on the basis of input-output tables is so far only available for the period 2000–2007. The European Environment Agency aims to cover a more recent period by 2016. A comparison of carbon and energy productivity could provide a good complement to a sole picture of carbon productivity. Data on primary energy consumption is provided annually by Eurostat. In the future, one could also include embodied/embedded carbon. This seems particularly advisable as raw materials consumption and commodity imports are all associated with GHG emissions. Not taking into account embedded carbon runs the risks of neglecting the role of consumption and the internationally distributed character of value chains.
