Expanding building stock and thriving manufacturing industry

As noted, Sweden's domestic extraction is among the highest in the world—and almost one-third of it feeds into meeting the country's societal need for housing and infrastructure. Over the last decade, business has been booming for the construction sector. [40] Net migration has fed a growing population, while lifestyle and cultural trends have put further pressures on demand—Sweden maintains the highest share of single-occupancy households in Europe and secondary homes (such as summer houses) are common. The sector's resource use, from materials and water to energy—is spiralling upwards, driving domestic extraction and inflating Sweden's material footprint. Sweden's abundance of non-metallic minerals, primarily sand and gravel, are largely used for concrete production—and consequently, almost half (48%) of Sweden’s total material consumption, 125 million tonnes, is linked to the building stock. This isn't only due to population growth, however: Sweden's area is the third largest in the EU, and population density is very low—necessitating spread-out infrastructure that connects rural communities and provides civil amenities and services.

​​Similarly, the rapid expansion of the building stock during the last years has locked vast amounts of materials into stocks. Currently, roughly 40% of virgin materials imported to or extracted in Sweden, around 106.2 million tonnes, are considered Net additions to stock annually—most of them in the form of buildings or infrastructure. This, in turn, delays possible cycling of these materials, and hikes up energy demand and emissions through construction processes and building use. Even efficiency gains in the way buildings are erected and operated are dulled by stock expansion:[41] more circular construction won't cut the sector's material footprint if building rates continue to grow.

The manufacturing sector also drives Sweden's extraction, by requiring materials to process into the goods that represent 13.4% of Sweden's total material consumption: 35.7 million tonnes. Despite a shift towards services during the last decades, manufacturing is still considered the backbone of the Swedish economy—a key sector in terms of value creation, employment and especially trade. [42] The most important export sector, Swedish manufacturing is innovative, dynamic and high-tech, with unique characteristics that has allowed it to remain strong and competitive despite some important disadvantages. [43] It is this core economic importance that, along with construction, largely influences Sweden's extraction: logging, for example, provides materials for a range of energy-hungry sub-sectors, from pulp and paper to timber production and chemical processing. Ores and other minerals are similarly processed and fed into sectors such as industrial engineering, and machinery and vehicle production—one of the export sectors Sweden is particularly known for.