Abstract
Governments at different levels need to appreciate the environmental impacts of socioeconomic activities within their boundaries. They also need to decide relevant environmental policies after carefully examining future pathways based on the relationship between the environment and the economy. This study focuses on Japanese basic administrative divisions (i.e., municipalities) and attempts to quantify the annual environmental efficiency of processes and socioeconomic activities within each of these divisions using life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) concepts. A key element of the LCIA is the integration of different environmental loads across various impact categories, such as global warming, air pollution, and land use, and their representation through a simple indicator. First, we conduct annual environmental impact assessments for all Japanese municipalities based on reliable, verifiable, and comparable statistical information. Next, we estimate the environmental efficiency of socioeconomic activities within each division by dividing the gross regional product (GRP) with the environmental damage amounts calculated through LIME2, an LCIA-based tool tailored for Japan. Assessment results for each municipality are visualized on maps of Japan in order to highlight the spatial distribution of the values for each indicator. The findings of this study can aid local, regional, and national governments in Japan to inform environmental policy design and decision-making at different spatial levels.
Highlights
Recent international frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement aim at promoting global cooperation toward environmental protection
Many public agencies, including local governments, have begun incorporating such approaches as part of their financial accounting practices. There are many such examples ranging from local to national governments: e.g., (a) the Eurobodalla Shire in Australia publishes annual statistics on environmental asset values and expenditures, and considers them for environmental conservation within the administrative division [2]; (b) Washington State in the U.S publishes a strategic plan and a draft budget for a statewide environmental project every two years [3]; and (c) the statistical department of the United Kingdom publishes annual environmental reports for the entire nation based on the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework [4]
Though these calculations were originally performed in Japanese yen (JPY), the results are presented here in U.S dollars (111.34 USD/JPY on 1 April 2019)
Summary
Recent international frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement aim at promoting global cooperation toward environmental protection. More and more companies have started recognizing the importance of developing and implementing good environmental practices, carefully examining their future plans and considering their business activities in relation to the environment and the economy. In this context, the United Nations published in 2012 “The System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA)” [1], an international standard framework to integrate economic and environmental information. Environmental accounting has not been adopted by local governments as widely as by private companies [5]
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