Indicators for sustainable development, such as: Dow Jones sustainability group indices, life cycle index, ecological footprint, sustainability cities index, Well-Being Index, are acknowledged evaluation instruments in the international development policy. They are used to evaluate dematerialization introduced in order to identify environmental efficiency. While these indicators describe the performance of single products on the market or the life style of societies, they do not provide exact information on product (resource) and sector dematerialization, which is one of the major objectives of the current development policies. In this paper, we present a new concept - 'product generational dematerialization' (PGD) indicator with the aim of extending the available sustainable development methodology and to cover the existing methodological gap. We show advantages of the practical application of this indicator for management policies on the national and international level by analyzing dematerialization of crude oil in the global economy during the time period 1972-2010. The implementation of the product generational dematerialization indicator for analyses of single products or branches can help to determine consumption areas characterized by the most significant consumption changes, as well as identify necessary actions to be taken to diminish environmental pollution and resource depletion. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.