•Resource-efficiency and circularity is becoming an important policy topic globally and in the EU.•The EU’s resource-efficiency roadmap recognizes the relevance of consumption-based accounting for ...carbon, water, land and materials.•Using the MRIO with the highest, consistent sector and product detail available (EXIOBASE), for the first time we analyse the carbon, water, land and materials footprint of countries side-by-side.•We show that Europe, as the only region on the world, has a negative import/export balance for embodied imports of all footprints – Europe lives on resource and emission credits provided by other parts of the world.•Reductions of footprints are hence particularly relevant for Europe.
The European Union (EU) has proposed in its Resource-efficiency roadmap a ‘dashboard of indicators’ consisting of four headline indicators for carbon, water, land and materials. The EU recognizes the need to use a consumption-based (or ‘footprint’) perspective to capture the global dimension of resources and their impacts. In this paper, we analyse how the EU’s footprints compare to those of other nations, to what extent the EU and other major economies of the world rely on embodied resource imports, and what the implications are for policy making based on this comparison. This study is the first comprehensive multi-indicator comparison of all four policy relevant indicators, and uses a single consistent global Multi-Regional Input Output (MRIO) database with a unique and high level of product detail across countries. We find that Europe is the only region in the world that relies on net embodied imports for all indicators considered. We further find that the powerful economies of China and others in the Asia-Pacific already dominate global resource consumption from a footprint perspective, while they still haven’t reached the prosperity of developed countries. Competition for resources is hence likely to increase, making Europe even more vulnerable. A hot spot analysis suggests that final consumption of food, transport and housing are priorities for reduction efforts along the life cycle. Further, countries with a similar Human Development Index can have very different footprints, pointing at societal organisation at macro-level as option for improvement. This points at options for countries for lowering their footprint, becoming less dependent on embodied imports, while maintaining a high quality of life.
Summary
Environmentally extended multiregional input‐output (EE MRIO) tables have emerged as a key framework to provide a comprehensive description of the global economy and analyze its effects on ...the environment. Of the available EE MRIO databases, EXIOBASE stands out as a database compatible with the System of Environmental‐Economic Accounting (SEEA) with a high sectorial detail matched with multiple social and environmental satellite accounts. In this paper, we present the latest developments realized with EXIOBASE 3—a time series of EE MRIO tables ranging from 1995 to 2011 for 44 countries (28 EU member plus 16 major economies) and five rest of the world regions. EXIOBASE 3 builds upon the previous versions of EXIOBASE by using rectangular supply‐use tables (SUTs) in a 163 industry by 200 products classification as the main building blocks. In order to capture structural changes, economic developments, as reported by national statistical agencies, were imposed on the available, disaggregated SUTs from EXIOBASE 2. These initial estimates were further refined by incorporating detailed data on energy, agricultural production, resource extraction, and bilateral trade. EXIOBASE 3 inherits the high level of environmental stressor detail from its precursor, with further improvement in the level of detail for resource extraction. To account for the expansion of the European Union (EU), EXIOBASE 3 was developed with the full EU28 country set (including the new member state Croatia). EXIOBASE 3 provides a unique tool for analyzing the dynamics of environmental pressures of economic activities over time.
Summary
Global multiregional input‐output databases (GMRIOs) became the standard tool for tracking environmental impacts through global supply chains. To date, several GMRIOs are available, but the ...numerical results differ. This paper considers how GMRIOs can be made more robust and authoritative. We show that GMRIOs need detail in environmentally relevant sectors. On the basis of a review of earlier work, we conclude that the highest uncertainty in footprint analyses is caused by the environmental data used in a GMRIO, followed by the size of country measured in gross domestic product (GDP) as fraction of the global total, the structure of the national table, and only at the end the structure of trade. We suggest the following to enhance robustness of results. In the short term, we recommend using the Single country National Accounts Consistent footprint approach, that uses official data for extensions and the national table for the country in question, combined with embodiments in imports calculated using a GMRIO. In a time period of 2 to 3 years, we propose work on harmonized environmental data for water, carbon, materials, and land, and use the aggregated Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Inter‐Country Input‐Output GMRIO as default in combination with detailing procedures developed in, for example, the EXIOBASE and Eora projects. In the long term, solutions should be coordinated by the international organizations such as the United Nations (UN) Statistical Division, OECD, and Eurostat. This could ensure that when input‐output tables and trade data of individual countries are combined, that the global totals are consistent and that bilateral trade asymmetries are resolved.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmentally extended input output analysis (EEIOA) are two widely used approaches to assess the environmental impacts of products and services with the aim of ...providing decision support. Here, we compare carbon footprint (CF) results for products and services in the ecoinvent 3.4 cut‐off and the hybrid version of EXIOBASE. While we find that there is good agreement for certain sectors, more than half of the matched products differ by more than a factor 2. Best fits are observed in the energy, manufacturing, and agricultural sectors, although deviations are substantial for renewable energy. Poorer fits are observed for waste treatment and mining sectors. Both databases have a limited differentiation in the service sector. Differences can, to some degree, be explained by methodological differences, such as system boundaries and approaches used to resolve multi‐functionality, and data differences. The common finding that, due to incomplete economic coverage (truncation error), LCA‐based CFs should be lower than EEIOA‐based CFs, could not be confirmed. The comparison of CFs from LCA and EEIOA databases can provide additional insights into the uncertainties of CF results, which is important knowledge when guiding decision makers. An approach that uses the coefficient of variation to identify strategic database improvement potentials is also presented and highlights several product groups that could deserve additional attention in both databases. Further strategic database improvements are crucial to reduce uncertainties and increase the robustness of decision support that the industrial ecology community can provide for the economic transformations ahead of us. This article met the requirements for a gold‐gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.
Over the past years, an increasing number of scholarly papers have used the planetary boundaries (PBs) within life cycle assessment (LCA) to determine if the life cycle impacts of a product system ...fit within those PBs and thereby establish the absolute sustainability of the product system. This type of LCA is nowadays coined as LCA‐based Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment (AESA). “Absolute” thereby refers to methods enabling the comparison of environmental impacts of products, companies, nations, and so on, with an assigned share of environmental carrying capacity for various impact categories. A recent review of LCA‐based AESA methods and their applications characterized 47 studies “according to their intended application, impact categories, basis of carrying capacity estimates, spatial differentiation of environmental model and principles for assigning carrying capacity.” However, the review and the majority of studies reviewed did not, or only to a limited extent, discuss potential temporal issues of assigning carrying capacity to product systems. Several of the carrying capacity estimates have a time dimension while LCA results lack a time dimension. In this article, we show that assigning PBs to product systems is only technically possible when adopting several fundamental though unrealistic assumptions, and conclude that even product LCA‐based AESA is relative. This should not withhold scholars from developing approaches applying the PBs in LCA, but it should prevent them from claiming and using the term “absolute.”
Consumption-based material footprints calculated with multi-regional input–output (mrIO) analysis are influenced by the sectoral, spatial and material aggregations used in the mrIO tables, and lack ...of disaggregation can be a source of uncertainty. This study investigated the effect of the resolution of mrIO databases on consumption-based material footprints. The effect of aggregation was investigated by constructing input–output tables with different spatial, product and material category resolutions and comparing the calculated material footprints. Our results indicate that the material footprints of countries calculated using the different spatial and product aggregations are in general in the order of a few percent, with outliers in the order of 25% difference. The use of IO models with a low product category resolution (e.g. 60 product categories) to calculate the embodied material use of individual products will likely result in inaccurate estimations of the total embodied material for some product categories. Aggregating the original 46 material categories into 16 categories changes the calculated material footprint of countries by about 30%. This result strongly suggests that the material data used to create the extensions for the IO framework should be collected at the highest resolution that is practically feasible.
•Effect of aggregation on material footprint versus carbon footprint•Material footprints of countries and products.•Aggregation at different stage of the creation of multi-regional input-output table.
Food consumption causes, together with mobility, shelter and the use of electrical products, most life cycle impacts of consumption. Meat and dairy are among the highest contributors to environmental ...impacts from food consumption. A healthier diet might have less environmental impacts. Using the E3IOT environmentally extended input output database developed in an EU study on Environmental Impacts of Products (EIPRO), this paper estimates the difference in impacts between the European status quo and three simulated diet baskets, i.e. a pattern according to universal dietary recommendations, the same pattern with reduced meat consumption, and a ‘Mediterranean’ pattern with reduced meat consumption. Production technologies, protein and energy intake were kept constant. Though this implies just moderate dietary shifts, impact reductions of up to 8% were possible in reduced meat scenarios. The slightly changed food costs do not lead to significant first order rebound effects. Second order rebounds were estimated by applying the CAPRI partial equilibrium model. This analysis showed that European meat production sector will most likely respond by higher exports to compensate for losses on the domestic meat market. Higher impact reductions probably would need more drastic diet changes.
► We analysed environmental impacts of the current EU27 diet and three healthier diets lower in meat. ► We used environmentally extended input output analysis plus dynamic modeling using CAPRI. ► We found that our moderate diet changes reduce impacts only with 8%. ► First and second order rebounds make environmental benefits even less. ► Only higher reductions in meat but also milk consumption can give more environmental benefits.
Measuring progress towards sustainable development requires appropriate frameworks and databases. The System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) is undergoing continuous refinement with these ...objectives in mind. In SEEA, there is a need for databases to encompass the global dimension of societal metabolism. In this paper, we focus on the latest effort to construct a global multi-regional input-output database (EXIOBASE) with a focus on environmentally relevant activities. The database and its broader analytical framework allows for the as yet most detailed insight into the production-related impacts and "footprints" of our consumption. We explore the methods used to arrive at the database, and some key relationships extracted from the database.
PURPOSE: Quantitative uncertainties are a direct consequence of averaging, a common procedure when building life cycle inventories (LCIs). This averaging can be amongst locations, times, products, ...scales or production technologies. To date, however, quantified uncertainties at the unit process level have largely been generated using a Numerical Unit Spread Assessment Pedigree (NUSAP) approach and often disregard inherent uncertainties (inaccurate measurements) and spread (variability around means). METHODS: A decision tree for primary and secondary data at the unit process level was initially created. Around this decision tree, a protocol was developed with the recognition that dispersions can be either results of inherent uncertainty, spread amongst data points or products of unrepresentative data. In order to estimate the characteristics of uncertainties for secondary data, a method for weighting means amongst studies is proposed. As for unrepresentativeness, the origin and adaptation of NUSAP to the field of life cycle assessment are discussed, and recommendations are given. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: By using the proposed protocol, cross-referencing of outdated data is avoided, and user influence on results is reduced. In the meantime, more accurate estimates can be made for horizontally averaged data with accompanying spread and inherent uncertainties, as these deviations often contribute substantially towards the overall dispersion. CONCLUSIONS: In this article, we highlight the importance of including inherent uncertainties and spread alongside the NUSAP pedigree. As uncertainty data often are missing in LCI literature, we here describe a method for evaluating these by taking several reported values into account. While this protocol presents a practical way towards estimating overall dispersion, better reporting in literature is promoted in order to determine real uncertainty parameters.
EXIOPOL (A New Environmental Accounting Framework Using Externality Data and Input-Output Tools for Policy Analysis) was a European Union (EU)-funded project creating a detailed, global, ...multiregional environmentally extended Supply and Use table (MR EE SUT) of 43 countries, 129 sectors, 80 resources, and 40 emissions. We sourced primary SUT and input-output tables from Eurostat and non-EU statistical offices. We harmonized and detailed them using auxiliary national accounts data and co-efficient matrices. Imports were allocated to countries of exports using United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database trade shares. Optimization procedures removed imbalances in these detailing and trade linking steps. Environmental extensions were added from various sources. We calculated the EU footprint of final consumption with resulting MR EE SUT. EU policies focus mainly on energy and carbon footprints. We show that the EU land, water, and material footprint abroad is much more relevant, and should be prioritized in the EU's environmental product and trade policies.
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