Assessing supply chain greenness from the perspective of embodied renewable energy – A data envelopment analysis using multi-regional input-output analysis

Abstract

Previous assessments for the sustainability of global supply chains have mostly focused on the single environmental aspect, that is, the accounting of pollutant leakage. Considering that the impact of supply chain on sustainability is transnational and multi-dimensional, this study proposes a supply chain green-degree assessment method based on multi-regional input-output model (MRIO) and data envelopment analysis (DEA). The proposed method integrates economic and environmental factors embodied in the supply chains into a green-degree indicator, while taking into account the constraints of energy consumption structure. Based on this method, we account for the renewable and non-renewable energy consumption embodied in global supply chains and measure the supply chains green-degree. The results show that 27% of renewable energy is consumed in the cross-border production of goods and services, and the participation of renewable energy in global supply chains is increasing. The green-degree of the current global supply chains is quite low, with an average score of only 0.45. The outsourcing of production and processing activities has made developed economies' supply chains “less clean”, and their green-degree has dropped by 5.3% between 2000 and 2014, while the emerging developing economies’ have become cleaner, and their green-degree has increased by 10.5%.