The interest in consumption-based emission and resource accounting has grown significantly. Many studies juxtapose consumer emissions (carbon footprint) and producer (territorial) emissions of ...greenhouse gases in order to demonstrate the effects of trade on the national emission budget. To this end, a respectable number of studies have been undertaken worldwide in order to estimate emissions embedded in international trade of numerous countries and world regions. Input–output approaches, and increasingly multi-region input–output (MRIO) models, are commonly chosen as they provide an appropriate methodological framework for complete carbon footprint estimates at the national and supra-national level. With increasing processing capabilities of computers and a wider availability of economic accounts, environmental accounts and trade data such models are now being implemented on a wide scale.
After a brief overview of salient single-region input–output studies I provide an in-depth review of the most recent multi-region input–output models used for the purpose of consumption-based environmental accounting. The main methodological features and important results are described for around twenty studies covering the years 2007 to 2009. This is followed by a detailed review of studies dealing with uncertainty in MRIO analysis, an area which has not received a lot of attention so far. I conclude that further research is mainly needed in two areas, a) improvements in data availability and quality and b) improvements in the accuracy of MRIO modelling.
Within the context of Earth's limited natural resources and assimilation capacity, the current environmental footprint of humankind is not sustainable. Assessing land, water, energy, material, and ...other footprints along supply chains is paramount in understanding the sustainability, efficiency, and equity of resource use from the perspective of producers, consumers, and government. We review current footprints and relate those to maximum sustainable levels, highlighting the need for future work on combining footprints, assessing trade-offs between them, improving computational techniques, estimating maximum sustainable footprint levels, and benchmarking efficiency of resource use. Ultimately, major transformative changes in the global economy are necessary to reduce humanity's environmental footprint to sustainable levels.
This editorial is the introduction to a special issue of Economic Systems Research on the topic of carbon footprint and input-output analysis. It provides a brief historical context of the ...involvement of input-output analysis with applications in environmental research and makes the link to carbon footprint theory and practice. The six papers in this issue are briefly introduced. The aim of the special issue is to bring together the academic world of rigorous economic modelling and the practice of greenhouse gas accounting at various levels.
Cities are recognised as central to determining the sustainability of human development. However, assessment concepts that are able to ascertain whether or not a city is sustainable are only just ...emerging. Here we review literature since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed in 2015 and identify three strands of scientific inquiry and practice in assessing city sustainability. We find that further integration is needed. SDG monitoring and assessment of cities should take advantage of both consumption-based (footprint) accounting and benchmarking against planetary boundaries and social thresholds in order to achieve greater relevance for designing sustainable cities and urban lifestyles.
The Ecological Footprint as an indicator that accounts for human demand on global bioproductivity sets out to quantify the impacts associated with consumption in a given country, including the ...impacts associated with trade. The National Footprint Accounts (NFA) by Global Footprint Network (GFN) calculate trade-embodied Footprints by multiplying yield and embodied energy factors with mass volumes of traded goods in a “Product Land Use Matrix (PLUM)”. This article compares energy Footprints embodied in trade from and to the United Kingdom in 2002 as calculated by the NFA-PLUM with the results from a recently developed multi-region input–output model (MRIO) for the UK. Although totals for imports and exports are comparable, breaking down the results by economic sectors reveals large differences and hardly any correlation between the two methods. The omission of trade in services (especially transport services) and upstream impacts of energy goods (fossil fuels) and the use of inappropriate embodied energy factors in the NFA-PLUM method are identified as the main reasons for these differences.
In the light of the results it seems that a comprehensive Footprint account of trade can better be achieved with an input–output based approach. I conclude that MRIO models – once fully developed – will be particularly suitable in the future to estimate the Ecological Footprints of imports and exports of nations with the possibility to track their origin via inter-industry linkages, international supply chains and multi-national trade flows.
material footprint of nations Wiedmann, Thomas O.; Schandl, Heinz; Lenzen, Manfred ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
05/2015, Letnik:
112, Številka:
20
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Significance This original research paper addresses a key issue in sustainability science: How many and which natural resources are needed to sustain modern economies? Simple as it may seem, this ...question is far from trivial to answer and has indeed not been addressed satisfactorily in the scholarly literature. We use the most comprehensive and most highly resolved economic input–output framework of the world economy together with a detailed database of global material flows to calculate the full material requirements of all countries covering a period of two decades. Called the “material footprint,” this indicator provides a consumption perspective of resource use and new insights into the actual resource productivity of nations.
Metrics on resource productivity currently used by governments suggest that some developed countries have increased the use of natural resources at a slower rate than economic growth (relative decoupling) or have even managed to use fewer resources over time (absolute decoupling). Using the material footprint (MF), a consumption-based indicator of resource use, we find the contrary: Achievements in decoupling in advanced economies are smaller than reported or even nonexistent. We present a time series analysis of the MF of 186 countries and identify material flows associated with global production and consumption networks in unprecedented specificity. By calculating raw material equivalents of international trade, we demonstrate that countries’ use of nondomestic resources is, on average, about threefold larger than the physical quantity of traded goods. As wealth grows, countries tend to reduce their domestic portion of materials extraction through international trade, whereas the overall mass of material consumption generally increases. With every 10% increase in gross domestic product, the average national MF increases by 6%. Our findings call into question the sole use of current resource productivity indicators in policy making and suggest the necessity of an additional focus on consumption-based accounting for natural resource use.
The global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) commenced in 2016 and provide an evidence-based framework for sustainable development planning and programming until 2030. There is emerging ...international practice and a growing catalogue of related reviews, assessments, guidelines and publications. While the expert community is clearly emphasising the need to adopt evidence- and science-based approaches to SDG implementation, policymakers now face the challenge of implementing the SDGs simultaneously in a coherent and integrated manner. Regular systematic reviews of national progress and approaches to implementing the SDGs are advisable to ensure that emerging science and knowledge is effectively informing national practice. This paper reviews the recent academic and expert literature as well as national experience in implementing the SDGs in 26 countries. It uses a systematic approach to analyse the degree to which key implementation stages and approaches recommended in the expert literature are being adopted and applied to support national SDG implementation on-the-ground. The review highlights that while progress has been made in some initial planning stages, key gaps remain in terms of the assessment of interlinkages, trade-offs and synergies between targets. Gaps are also clearly evident in the adoption of systems thinking and integrated analytical approaches and models. This is problematic as it may undermine effective implementation and the transformative potential of the SDGs. As more countries turn their attention to the SDGs, the review underscores the considerable risk that they will pursue the same ‘siloed’ or ‘linear’ approaches to sustainable development that have met with limited success in the past.
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•This research assesses life-cycle carbon impacts of different powertrains.•We illustrate a transition to low-carbon vehicles in a hybrid IO-LCA model.•Different electricity and ...transport scenarios are integrated in the model.•With Australia’s current grid-mix, electric vehicles offer no mitigation potential.•Using renewable energy, electric vehicle carbon footprints can be cut by 66%.
Recent life cycle assessments confirmed the greenhouse gas emission reduction potential of renewable electricity and electric vehicle technologies. However, each technology is usually assessed separately and not within a consistent macro-economic, multi-sectoral framework. Here we present a multi-regional input-output based hybrid approach with integrated scenarios to facilitate the carbon footprint assessment of all direct and indirect effects of a transition to low-emission transportation and electricity generation technologies in Australia. The work takes into account on-road energy consumption values that are more realistic than official drive-cycle energy consumption figures used in previous work. Accounting for these factors as well as for Australia’s grid electricity, which heavily relies on coal power, electric vehicles are found to have a higher carbon footprint than conventional vehicles, whereas hybrid electric vehicles have the lowest. This means that – from a carbon footprint perspective – powertrain electrification is beneficial only to a certain degree at the current stage. This situation can be changed by increasing shares of renewable electricity in the grid. In our best-case scenario, where renewable energy accounts for 96% of the electricity mix in 2050, electric vehicle carbon footprints can be cut by 66% by 2050 relative to 2009. In the business-as-usual scenario (36% renewable electricity share by 2050), electric vehicles can reach a 56% reduction if fossil fuel power plants significantly increase their efficiencies and use carbon capture and storage technologies.
For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology. The ...affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions. We summarise the evidence and present possible solution approaches. Any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements. However, existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change.
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