184
also consider the import and export of goods and delivery of international services,
and the upstream burdens associated with their life cycles.
An advanced approach to this idea has been piloted in a study commission by the
European Commission in 2008 on the consumption-based national resource efficiency (European Commission 2012): Territorial data, mostly based on official statistics, were combined with full process-based life cycle data for the 15 most
important traded product groups. These product groups were represented by representative products (e.g. “passenger car” for the product group “road vehicles” or
“methanol” for “organic chemicals”) and the inventories were scaled up to the
amount of goods traded in each product group. The rest of trade was approximated
by the mix of those that were explicitly modelled. It was moreover possible to model
the inventories of the traded goods for the two or three most important source countries. Despite some weaknesses, particularly in the territorial data, the study could
show for many impact categories that a shifting of burdens occurred from Europe to
other countries, i.e. while territorial impacts were slowly reducing, due to an
increased import or higher processed products, the overall EU consumption-based
environmental impact is increasing with time.
The main sources of lack of accuracy and of uncertainty in such approaches –
next to the mentioned territorial data that is weak in several impact categories – are
limitations in life cycle data on specific products for a range of product groups,
particularly more complex consumer products and services. Also, the approximation of a product group by one representative product carries a relevant uncertainty,
which can be overcome only by increasing the number of products to approximate
a product group. The recent increase in availability of Environmental Product
Declarations and Footprints for all kinds of products is a promising development,
which can be expected to substantially ease such calculations.
Such studies are valuable to inform policy makers about true consumption-based
trends in environmental impact, and to identify the main product groups and trade
partners from and to where such a shifting of burdens happens and inform related
policies. One key advantage of this approach is that these studies can be tailored and
further developed to be very specific on traded products to address specific policy
questions. In contrast, Environmentally Extended Input Output (EEIO) studies are
limited by the very broad range of whole industry sectors, which cannot well differentiate below industry sectors. Moreover, EEIO is based on economic relations
across the economy, hence its life cycle data is closely correlated with money that is
an important limiting factor to consumption as discussed above, hence will lead to
only rough and possibly distorted results.
3.4 Global Level: The Sum of All Consumption
Versus the Planetary Boundaries
Studies on global level necessarily take a more comprehensive perspective, including all human activities. Monitoring the overall environmental impact is a very
high-level indicator that can be used also to evaluate in how far we surpass the
M.-A. Wolf and K. Chomkhamsri
also consider the import and export of goods and delivery of international services,
and the upstream burdens associated with their life cycles.
An advanced approach to this idea has been piloted in a study commission by the
European Commission in 2008 on the consumption-based national resource efficiency (European Commission 2012): Territorial data, mostly based on official statistics, were combined with full process-based life cycle data for the 15 most
important traded product groups. These product groups were represented by representative products (e.g. “passenger car” for the product group “road vehicles” or
“methanol” for “organic chemicals”) and the inventories were scaled up to the
amount of goods traded in each product group. The rest of trade was approximated
by the mix of those that were explicitly modelled. It was moreover possible to model
the inventories of the traded goods for the two or three most important source countries. Despite some weaknesses, particularly in the territorial data, the study could
show for many impact categories that a shifting of burdens occurred from Europe to
other countries, i.e. while territorial impacts were slowly reducing, due to an
increased import or higher processed products, the overall EU consumption-based
environmental impact is increasing with time.
The main sources of lack of accuracy and of uncertainty in such approaches –
next to the mentioned territorial data that is weak in several impact categories – are
limitations in life cycle data on specific products for a range of product groups,
particularly more complex consumer products and services. Also, the approximation of a product group by one representative product carries a relevant uncertainty,
which can be overcome only by increasing the number of products to approximate
a product group. The recent increase in availability of Environmental Product
Declarations and Footprints for all kinds of products is a promising development,
which can be expected to substantially ease such calculations.
Such studies are valuable to inform policy makers about true consumption-based
trends in environmental impact, and to identify the main product groups and trade
partners from and to where such a shifting of burdens happens and inform related
policies. One key advantage of this approach is that these studies can be tailored and
further developed to be very specific on traded products to address specific policy
questions. In contrast, Environmentally Extended Input Output (EEIO) studies are
limited by the very broad range of whole industry sectors, which cannot well differentiate below industry sectors. Moreover, EEIO is based on economic relations
across the economy, hence its life cycle data is closely correlated with money that is
an important limiting factor to consumption as discussed above, hence will lead to
only rough and possibly distorted results.
3.4 Global Level: The Sum of All Consumption
Versus the Planetary Boundaries
Studies on global level necessarily take a more comprehensive perspective, including all human activities. Monitoring the overall environmental impact is a very
high-level indicator that can be used also to evaluate in how far we surpass the
M.-A. Wolf and K. Chomkhamsri