• Energy Research

This paper presents an application of a modified ecological footprint method, using a regional, disturbance-based approach. In contrast to conventional institutional ecological footprint calculations, energy and land use resulting from all upstream production processes are explored by employing an input-output framework. Ecological footprints are calculated for two research institutions: the School of Physics (SoP) at the University of Sydney, and the Sustainable Ecosystems (CSE) Department of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. These are broken down further in terms of land disturbance and greenhouse gas emissions, and as a function of production layer. To enable the use of the results in policy formulation, the ecological footprints are decomposed into detailed contributing paths, which are ranked according to their importance, using structural path analysis. The paper demonstrates that a considerable proportion of impacts occur upstream in industrial production. Thus a sig...

SummaryThe investment in capital goods is a well‐known driver of economic activity, associated resource use, and environmental impact. In national accounting, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) constitutes a substantial share of the total final demand of goods and services, both in terms of monetary turnover and embodied resources. In this article, we study the structure of GFCF and the environmental impacts associated with it on a global scale, and link it to measures of development. We find that the share of GFCF as part of the total carbon footprint (CF) varies more across countries than GFCF as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). Countries in early phases of development generally tend to invest in resource‐intensive assets, primarily infrastructure and machinery, whereas wealthier countries invest in less resource‐intensive assets, such as computers, software, and services. By performing a structural decomposition analysis, we assess the relative importance of investment structure and input‐output multipliers for the difference in carbon intensity of capital assets, and find that the structure of investments plays a larger role for less‐developed countries than for developed countries. We find a relative decoupling of the CF of GFCF from GDP, but we can neither confirm nor rule out the possibility of an absolute decoupling.

Harvested biomass is linked to final consumption by networks of processes and actors that convert and distribute food and nonfood goods. Achieving a sustainable resource metabolism of the economy is an overarching challenge which manifests itself in a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Modeling the physical dimensions of biomass conversion and distribution networks is essential to understanding the characteristics, drivers, and dynamics of the socio-economic biomass metabolism. In this paper, we present the Food and Agriculture Biomass Input-Output model (FABIO), a set of multiregional supply, use and input-output tables in physical units, that document the complex flows of agricultural and food products in the global economy. The model assembles FAOSTAT statistics reporting crop production, trade, and utilization in physical units, supplemented by data on technical and metabolic conversion efficiencies, into a consistent, balanced, input-output framework. FABIO covers 191 countries and 130 agriculture, food and forestry products from 1986 to 2013. The physical supply use tables offered by FABIO provide a comprehensive, transparent, and flexible structure for organizing data representing flows of materials within metabolic networks. They allow tracing of biomass flows and embodied environmental pressures along global supply chains at an unprecedented level of product and country detail and can help to answer a range of questions regarding environment, agriculture, and trade. Here we apply FABIO to the case of cropland footprints and show the evolution of consumption-based cropland demand in China, the E.U., and the U.S.A. for plant-based and livestock-based food and nonfood products.

AbstractThis paper shows the results of a sustainability assessment of deploying carbon capture and storage in European coal power plants in 2030, versus a scenario without CCS. The assessment examines potential impacts in five categories: impacts on human health, impacts on the natural environment, impacts on exhaustive resources, impacts on prosperity and impacts on social well-being. The analysis is undertaken in a prospective framework for the year 2030 under the economic scenarios which are based on the Blue map scenario of the IEA Energy Technology Perspectives.

Abstract A complex system of production links our greenhouse gas emissions to our consumer demands. Whilst progress may be made in improving efficiency, other changes in the production structure may easily annul global improvements. Utilising a structural decomposition analysis, a comparative-static technique of input–output analysis, over a time period of around 30 years, net greenhouse emissions are decomposed in this study into the effects, due to changes in industrial efficiency, forward linkages, inter-industry structure, backward linkages, type of final demand, cause of final demand, population affluence, population size, and mix and level of exports. Historically, significant competing forces at both the whole of economy and industrial scale have been mitigating potential improvements. Key sectors and structural influences are identified that have historically shown the greatest potential for change, and would likely have the greatest net impact. Results clearly reinforce that the current dichotomy of growth and exports are the key problems in need of address.

SummaryWe analyze the environmental impact of household consumption in terms of the material, water, and land‐use requirements, as well as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, associated with the production and use of products and services consumed by these households. Using the new EXIOBASE 2.2 multiregional input‐output database, which describes the world economy at the detail of 43 countries, five rest‐of‐the‐world regions, and 200 product sectors, we are able to trace the origin of the products consumed by households and represent global supply chains for 2007. We highlight the importance of environmental pressure arising from households with their consumption contributing to more than 60% of global GHG emissions and between 50% and 80% of total land, material, and water use. The footprints are unevenly distributed across regions, with wealthier countries generating the most significant impacts per capita. Elasticities suggest a robust and significant relationship between households’ expenditure and their environmental impacts, driven by a rising demand of nonprimary consumption items. Mobility, shelter, and food are the most important consumption categories across the environmental footprints. Globally, food accounts for 48% and 70% of household impacts on land and water resources, respectively, with consumption of meat, dairy, and processed food rising fast with income. Shelter and mobility stand out with high carbon and material intensity, whereas the significance of services for footprints relates to the large amount of household expenditure associated with them.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) could be an interesting option to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands. This study compares a mitigation strategy for the Dutch power sector that includes CCS to one without on several socio-economic indicators. In particular, we calculate incremental gross value added (GVA), employment and import dependency impacts of two such low-carbon power production portfolios for the Netherlands. We combine technology specific techno-economic bottom-up data with a macro-economic multi-regional Input-Output-Table containing high sectoral detail. For the total economy, we find the differences between these scenarios to be small. Still, gross value added, and employment are lower under the CCS-inclusive strategy, while import dependency is higher. For the power sector, the differences between the scenarios are, however, considerable. Furthermore, our analysis shows that also for other sectors the differences between the scenarios could be large. For instance, a CCS-exclusive strategy leads to considerably higher GVA and employment in domestic construction services, while the CCS-inclusive strategy comes with considerably higher GVA and employment for natural gas mining and related upstream sectors.