Abstract
SummaryMost countries show a relative decoupling of economic growth from domestic resource use, implying increased resource efficiency. However, international trade facilitates the exchange of products between regions with disparate resource productivity. Hence, for an understanding of resource efficiency from a consumption perspective that takes into account the impacts in the upstream supply chains, there is a need to assess the environmental pressures embodied in trade. We use EXIOBASE3, a new multiregional input‐output database, to examine the rate of increase in resource efficiency, and investigate the ways in which international trade contributes to the displacement of pressures on the environment from the consumption of a population. We look at the environmental pressures of energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, material use, water use, and land use. Material use stands out as the only indicator growing in both absolute and relative terms to population and gross domestic product (GDP), while land use is the only indicator showing absolute decoupling from both references. Energy, GHG, and water use show relative decoupling. As a percentage of total global environmental pressure, we calculate the net impact displaced through trade rising from 23% to 32% for material use (1995–2011), 23% to 26% for water use, 20% to 29% for energy use, 20% to 26% for land use, and 19% to 24% for GHG emissions. The results show a substantial disparity between trade‐related impacts for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and non‐OECD countries. At the product group level, we observe the most rapid growth in environmental footprints in clothing and footwear. The analysis points to implications for future policies aiming to achieve environmental targets, while fully considering potential displacement effects through international trade.
Highlights
Considering the current rate of economic growth, improving resource efficiency requires a strong decoupling between development and environmental impact
Achievements in resource efficiency, which are characterized by either absolute or strong relative decoupling from gross domestic product (GDP), have been limited
We see an equal growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to emissionsrelevant energy use, which implies that we have not achieved a global decarbonization of the energy supply
Summary
Considering the current rate of economic growth, improving resource efficiency requires a strong decoupling between development and environmental impact. The growing international flow of goods and services makes the relationship between trade and the environment increasingly important to understand (Liu et al 2015). Knowledge about international spillovers of resources burdens or environmental impact will help in assessing progress toward national environmental targets and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (e.g., Peters et al [2011] for climate policy). The average number of borders that an exported good crosses before final consumption is approximately 1.7 (Muradov 2016). This implies that most exported goods are not consumed within the country of import, but are processed further. Around one quarter of the global land use is embodied in trade (Weinzettel et al 2013), as well as over 40% of materials (Wiedmann et al 2015), 20% to 30% of global water use (Lenzen et al 2013b), and over 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Peters and Hertwich 2008)
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