Chapter 6
Benchmarking the Carbon, Water,
and Land Footprints Against Allocated
Planetary Boundaries
Abstract Growing scientific evidence for the indispensable role of environmental
sustainability in sustainable development calls for appropriate frameworks and indicators for environmental sustainability assessment (ESA). In this chapter, we operationalize and update the footprint–boundary ESA framework, with a particular focus
on its methodological and application extensions to the national level. By using the
latest datasets available, the planetary boundaries for carbon emissions, water use,
and land use are allocated to 28 selected countries in comparison to the corresponding
environmental footprints. The environmental sustainability ratio (ESR)—an internationally comparable indicator representing the sustainability gap between contemporary anthropogenic interference and critical capacity thresholds—allows one to
map the reserve or transgression of the nation-specific environmental boundaries.
Although the geographical distribution of the three ESRs varies across nations, in
general, the worldwide unsustainability of carbon emissions is largely driven by
economic development, while resource endowments play a central role in explaining
national performance on water and land use. The main value added of this chapter is
to provide concrete evidence of the validity of the proposed framework in allocating
overall responsibility for environmental sustainability to sub-global scales and in
informing policy makers about the need to prevent the planet’s environment from
tipping into an undesirable state.
Keywords Environmental sustainability · Environmental footprints · Planetary
boundaries · Sustainability gap · Environmental sustainability ratio · Carbon
emissions · Water use · Land use · Nations
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
K. Fang, Environmental Footprints,
SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61018-0_6
91
Benchmarking the Carbon, Water,
and Land Footprints Against Allocated
Planetary Boundaries
Abstract Growing scientific evidence for the indispensable role of environmental
sustainability in sustainable development calls for appropriate frameworks and indicators for environmental sustainability assessment (ESA). In this chapter, we operationalize and update the footprint–boundary ESA framework, with a particular focus
on its methodological and application extensions to the national level. By using the
latest datasets available, the planetary boundaries for carbon emissions, water use,
and land use are allocated to 28 selected countries in comparison to the corresponding
environmental footprints. The environmental sustainability ratio (ESR)—an internationally comparable indicator representing the sustainability gap between contemporary anthropogenic interference and critical capacity thresholds—allows one to
map the reserve or transgression of the nation-specific environmental boundaries.
Although the geographical distribution of the three ESRs varies across nations, in
general, the worldwide unsustainability of carbon emissions is largely driven by
economic development, while resource endowments play a central role in explaining
national performance on water and land use. The main value added of this chapter is
to provide concrete evidence of the validity of the proposed framework in allocating
overall responsibility for environmental sustainability to sub-global scales and in
informing policy makers about the need to prevent the planet’s environment from
tipping into an undesirable state.
Keywords Environmental sustainability · Environmental footprints · Planetary
boundaries · Sustainability gap · Environmental sustainability ratio · Carbon
emissions · Water use · Land use · Nations
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
K. Fang, Environmental Footprints,
SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61018-0_6
91