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.
The unique feature of the 2.-0 SDG framework is the use of sustainable wellbeing (utility) as a comprehensive summary indicator for all social, ecosystem and economic impacts. This indicator provides a single, quantitative endpoint for all causal impact pathways that have their starting point in the many different pressure (LCI) indicators, measurable at the level of specific production or consumption activities. Each pressure indicator is linked to the endpoint via the indicators for 169 targets of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The endpoint is expressed in units of Quality-Adjusted person-Life-Years.
The comprehensive impact pathway framework can be applied to differentiate major from minor impact pathways, to identify impact pathways that are not explicitly covered by any of the 169 sustainability targets, and to point out trade-offs and synergies between the 169 targets and their indicators. Due to the use of a single endpoint, the framework allows to quantify such trade-offs and synergies, to compare business decisions, performance and improvement options across industry sectors. Thereby, the 2.-0 SDG framework contrasts with the “cherry-picking” approach to the SDGs in current business applications. Instead, we support a rational choice of business development strategies through matching the sphere of influence of each specific business enterprise with the impact pathway framework.
The project provides estimated uncertainty ranges on each of the causal links of the impact pathways, using numerical data when possible and verbal scales when numerical data are insufficient. This also allows an identification of sustainability targets that are too vaguely formulated to allow a precise linking to the impact pathways.
The project builds on and extends impact assessment method developed by 2.-0 LCA consultants for social footprinting, which has been successfully tested for feasibility in global supply chain contexts, to support different business decisions, from single product purchases to larger policy changes, using a product life-cycle assessment approach to link specific company data to a global multi-regional input-output database with environmental and socio-economic extensions (see e.g. Schenker & Weidema 2017). The method has a low data requirement for screening purposes, and can be based exclusively on open data sources, with options for extending the level of detail when more data are available.
The project provides an actionable and rational method for businesses and governments to integrate the SDGs into decision making and monitoring, and will therefore contribute substantially to streamline and coordinate action and increase efficiency in implementing the 2030 Agenda.
Presentation for LCM 2021 on the project (14:23 min video on youtube) : https://youtu.be/zKW50rN3yzk
The project deliverables include:
Project members have early access to project deliverables. See below for deliverables that have already become open access.
Relative importance of sustainability impact pathways – A first rough assessment
Data collection guideline for pressure indicators for LCSA
Data files for Life Cycle SDG Assessment
The project themes are continued in the LCSA Club
Several environmental pressure indicators are based on information that can be obtained from physical supply and use tables (PSUTs). Examples are waste generation indicators, total material requirement (TMR), ecological rucksack, material intensity per product service (MIPS), carbon footprint. Further, when the PSUTs are combined with monetary and energy supply and use tables (MSUTs and EnSUTs), hybrid input-output tables (HIOTs) can be created. With the extensions of the PSUTs, the HIOTS can be used for calculating life cycle environmental pressure indicators for country/regional consumption, products, sectors and trade. The purpose of the current report is to present a generic methodology to create fully mass balanced multi-regional PSUTs.
A key working hypothesis of DESIRE is that an Environmental Extended Multi Regional Input Output database (EE MRIO) is a very powerful way to store environmental, social and economic data for further analysis and indicator construction. The overall objective of work package 5 within DESIRE was to compile such a database assembling multiple data sources into one comprehensive description of the global economy and its environmental impacts. This report covers the development of this database: EXIOBASE 3. The report documents the compilation of the time series of Supply-Use tables (SUT), the data processing of the social and environmental satellite accounts and the assembly of the Multi Regional Supply-Use (MR SUT) and EE MRIO.
EXIOBASE 3 builds upon existing databases, which were developed in previous projects (EXIOBASE 1 - EXIOPOL, fp6: A. Tukker et al. 2013; EXIOBASE 2 - CREEA, fp7: Wood et al. 2014). In EXIOBASE 3, the level of detail in the description of the economy is consistent with the previous version EXIOBASE 2, as is the implementation of the economic and environmental accounting principles proposed in the UN System of Economic and Environmental Accounts (European Commission et al. 2012). The geographic focus of EXIOBASE 3 is kept at the country level of the EU (now including the new member state Croatia), with adequate description of major non-EU economies. That ensures that reasonable estimates of resource efficiencies under consideration of upstream resource use of imports and exports can be provided.
EXIOBASE 3 pushes the state of the art in the field of global EE MRIOs. EXIOBASE exhibits a consistent sector classification of 200 products and 163 industries for all included countries and regions. The historic time series, ranging from 1995 to 2012, provide a description of the global economy consistent with international databases (“United Nations Statistics Division - National Accounts” 2013; FAO Statistics Division 2012; International Energy Agency 2012 etc.). To date, EXIOBASE 3 is the only nowcasted EE MRIO database, with time series running to 2016. Economic parameters of the now-casted years follow the estimates given by the International Monetary Fund (“IMF World Economic Outlook Database List” 2015). Trends in the change of the economic structure of SUT data are extrapolated from observed trends in the historic time series and resource usage is now-casted based on latest available resource efficiency data.
The new version of EXIOBASE provides policy-makers with a unique tool to assess the outcome of policies set in place to reduce environmental impacts and increase resource efficiency. With its high sectorial detail and the wide spectrum of environmental data consistently included in EXIOBASE, the now-casted EXIOBASE provides a very valuable tool for a range of environmental-economic assessments. Most importantly, EXIOBASE can assist in the implementation of the Resource Efficiency Roadmap (European Commission 2011a) both with economy-wide assessments, e.g. to produce aggregated headline indicators, as well as on assessments of the Roadmap’s priority areas, such as energy, food, buildings and mobility. EXIOBASE is also of high importance for assessments in the context of the transformation towards a competitive, low-carbon, economy (European Commission 2011b), as well as specific environmental strategies such as the EU Blueprint to safeguard Europe's Waters (European Commission 2012) or EU’s biodiversity strategy (European Commission 2011c).
Work package 5 (WP5) aims to compile an Environmentally-Extended Multi-Regional Input–Output database (EEMRIO) time series and calculate ‘macro resource indicators’ based on this database. In order to do so, the following tasks have to be accomplished:
This interim report focus on the compilation task 2 and describes the initial data gathering done for task 3. It is based on the previous report D 5.1 (inception report).
This report includes a description of how required data is obtained, refined and applied it to build the first MRIO time series. The report outlines methods to incorporate information about changing product and industry ouput as well as structural changes in the economy.
Following the plans described in D 5.1. a macro economic database was compiled which is used as overall constrain for all further economic modelling. This and data from the previous fp7 project CREEA was used to compile the first time series of monetary supply use tables. The final time series will include trade data and information about structural change within the domestic economies over time. The data compilation and refining process for this task is on track.
EXIOBASE includes various macro resource accounts (“environmental extensions” or “satellite accounts”). At the end of this workpackage, all these data will be gathered from the different groups and save in the EXIOBASE database. Multiple testing routines were developed to ensure consistency among the different datasets.
Time lags of several year hinders the use of MRIOs for policy making. DESIRE will explore options for now-casting the EEIO database and indicator results. We investigated several possibilities and data sources to do so and report on the outcome of this process.
In addition to monetary tables, physical IO time series data will be calculated. The procedure will be slightly different from that already developed for the EXIOBASE 2/CREEA since time series allows a better modelling of the production of waste from accumulated materials.
Several datasets have been compiled during the last month of the project. These have been distributed among all working group partners through the data sharing facility provided by TNO (sharepoint).
In this final report of the DESIRE project we convert results from all previous work packages into conclusions, and present results of prioritized indicators that could be calculated with readily available statistical data, and present an indicator implementation roadmap. Conclusions on the most appropriate Resource Efficiency indicator framework are based on:
This report also builds on a preliminary draft version that was distributed in the form of a discussion note among participants of the final conference on the 21st of January 2016 in Brussels. Discussions during the conference functioned as last stakeholder consultation round of which the outcomes are taken aboard in the indicator implementation roadmap as presented in the current report.
The Nordic Environmental Footprint group (NEF) under the Nordic Council of Ministers was asked by the EU Commission to contribute to the work on how to define the correct scope for future Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCRs), supporting the EU project to develop a harmonized LCA based methodology for assessment of environmental impact of products and services.
The purpose of the project was to provide a procedural description to identify the relevant granularity of product groups, through the definition of functional units that express the obligatory product properties on the market segment where the products are sold. This identification is best done in close cooperation with industry and other market players within the different product groups. Existing (performance) standards for the different product groups were used reference for the definition of the obligatory product properties. Furthermore, existing data from market surveys, including data on cross-price-elasticity, primarily obtained through cooperating industries, were applied to identify and document the relevant product substitutions, and thereby to justify the market delimitation for each product group and their functional units.
A general practical description of (guideline for) the procedural approach was made based on the description in the Danish consensus-project, but with an aim of improving practical usability and readability. Three examples were provided, one being the example of an office chair from the Danish consensus-project, and at least one within the food industry.
The project resulted in a report: 'Short procedural guideline to identify the functional unit for a product environmental footprint and to delimit the scope of product categories'.
As economies in the European Union are ultimately driven by the final consumption of citizens, policy makers need proper indicators to monitor the environmental impacts associated with this consumption. These indicators can be constructed using two different approaches, each having their strengths and limitations. The top-down approach is based on environmentally extended input–output analysis and quantifies the environmental impacts of product groups and services provided by industrial sectors. The bottom-up approach is based on Life Cycle Assessment and quantifies the environmental impacts of a selection of representative products. The bottom-up approach has already been used by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre to calculate the impacts of the final consumption per capita in the European Union in 2006. In this paper, we calculated these impacts through a top-down approach, using the Exiobase database. The covered household activities are food, consumer goods, mobility, shelter and services. The goal was to calculate all the impact categories recommended by the International Reference Life Cycle Data handbook, and compare both approaches. However, the categories ionizing radiation, toxicity and abiotic resource depletion could not be included, as some relevant emissions and resources are not available in Exiobase. To study more profoundly the impact on natural resources, we added the Cumulative Exergy Extraction From the Natural Environment to the impact assessment. When comparing both approaches, it can be concluded that there is a considerable shift in the results. This means that the information obtained by a top-down approach could supplement the information base for policy support.
Systembolaget in Sweden, Alko in Finland, and Vinmonopolet in Norway have social responsibility policies that include the environmental impact related to their activities. As part of this, the monopolies seek to identify the most important of their environmental impacts and options for reducing them. This study pertains to the product turnover in year 2014 and has been published in a report: Environmental impacts of alcoholic beverages.
