Is manufacturing more carbon-intensive in France than in Germany?

The main factor of this difference is a bias in the construction of this indicator, which must deal with complex economic situations and a wide variety of manufacturing activities. In fact, the methods used to estimate value added on either side of the Rhine differ in scope: German statisticians include some services used by the manufacturing sector (particularly trade and R&D), which is not the case in France. The impact on carbon intensity is significant: when manufacturing value-added figures are corrected for this methodological bias, a faster decline is observed in France than in Germany over the period 2013-2020, and the carbon intensity gap between the two countries disappears at the end of this period. 

This statistical bias puts technological and economic explanations in the background. In the case of cement, we show that the carbon intensity gap becomes insignificant when the statistical bias is corrected: on the one hand, French cement contains more clinker, but on the other, the clinker self-sufficiency rate is higher in Germany, and the energy mix consumed by French cement plants is less carbon-intensive than in Germany. 

Our work thus calls for greater homogenisation, at European level, of methods for estimating the carbon intensity of the manufacturing sector: this is a prerequisite for the evaluation of dedicated environmental policies. Beyond statistical biases, there remain significant discrepancies in some sectors (metallurgy, chemical industry, etc.), the interpretation of which presupposes an in-depth analysis of the specificities of the French and German manufacturing sectors.

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