Research Areas

This report includes a new objective for the BBVA Foundation-Ivie Research Program: to establish bridges between, first, the extensive information and analysis accumulated by the Program on the evolution of human and material assets on which income generation and welfare are based, and, second, the stocks and flows that reflect the relationship between human activities and nature. The speed with which natural resources are currently being depleted, and the impact that human activities have on the environment, such as water and soil pollution, deforestation, erosion, atmospheric emissions, etc., are damaging the capacity of nature to regenerate. For this reason, the need to reduce the negative environmental impacts derived from the massive use of natural resources and to economize their use has been stressed for years, especially within the European Union.

The aim of this report is to provide data that allows to analyze the relationship between the behaviour of the Spanish economy and the use of the resources that it demands from the natural environment. For this purpose, work will be done in two directions: the Analysis of Material Flows and the construction of a monetary valuation of the Stock of Natural Capital that complements those that have been developed for years through the BBVA Foundation-Ivie collaboration regarding the stock of public, private and human capital.