Land, carbon and water footprints in Taiwan

Abstract

The consumer responsibility approach uses footprints as indicators of the total direct and indirect effects of a product or consumption activity. This study used a time-series analysis of three environmental pressures to quantify the total environmental pressures caused by consumption in Taiwan: land footprint, carbon footprint, and water footprint. Land footprint is the pressure from appropriation of biologically productive land and water area. Carbon footprint is the pressure from greenhouse gas emissions. Water footprint is the pressure from freshwater consumption. Conventional carbon footprint is the total CO2 emitted by a certain activity or the CO2 accumulation during a product life cycle. This definition cannot be used to convert CO2 emissions into land units. This study responds to the needs of “CO2 land” in the footprint family by applying the carbon footprint concept used by GFN. The analytical results showed that consumption by the average Taiwan citizen in 2000 required appropriation of 5.39gha (hectares of land with global-average biological productivity) and 3.63gha in 2011 in terms of land footprint. The average Taiwan citizen had a carbon footprint of 3.95gha in 2000 and 5.94gha in 2011. These results indicate that separately analyzing the land and carbon footprints enables their trends to be compared and appropriate policies and strategies for different sectors to be proposed accordingly. The average Taiwan citizen had a blue water footprint of 801m3 in 2000 and 784m3 in 2011. By comparison, their respective global averages were 1.23gha, 2.36gha and 163m3 blue water in 2011, respectively. Overall, Taiwan revealed higher environmental pressures compared to the rest of the world, demonstrating that Taiwan has become a high footprint state and has appropriated environmental resources from other countries. That is, through its imports of products with embodied pressures and its exports, Taiwan has transferred the environmental pressures from consuming goods and services to other parts of the world, which is an environmental injustice. This study examines the time series trend of land, carbon, and water footprints in Taiwan. However, if these analyses can be downscaled to city/county levels, they will be more useful for examining different sustainability performance of local governments in different regions.