Abstract
Hotspots of resource use in country and sector supply chains are poorly understood, due in part to the unitary nature of environmental footprinting assessment. Understanding the profile of country and sector resource dependencies across their entire supply chain is needed to inform their integrated management. Within this study pressures across the global water, energy and land (WEL) system are located along the supply networks of 189 countries and 24 global sectors. These profiles reveal the focal supply chain tier(s) where country and sector pressures across the global WEL system arise. Viewed through a supply chain lens, pathways of water, energy and land use are found to be mainly indirect, arising from country and sector resource dependencies on immediate (tier two) and upstream (tier three+) producers in their supply network. However, the distribution of these pressures varies within and between national and sectoral supply networks and resource systems, requiring tailored management to mitigate their multiple impacts. These differences in the resource pressure profile of countries and sectors is scarcely recognised by existing modelling approaches or supplier reporting guidelines, but is of major consequence to the optimal management of the global WEL system. If measures are not taken to extend accountability for the indirect pressures imposed across the global WEL system, the resource burden of consumption will be greatly mismanaged.
Highlights
The supply chains of goods and services rely on systems of production that are spatially disaggregated and organisationally complex (Bode & Wagner, 2015)
Identifying opportunities for integrated management of country and sector pressures across the WEL system relies on an understanding of where water, energy and land resource use is concentrated throughout global supply chains
Journal Pre-proof across supply chain layers, this study reveals the contribution of tier 1 suppliers, immediate suppliers, and upstream suppliers to national and sectoral resource pressures across the WEL system
Summary
The supply chains of goods and services rely on systems of production that are spatially disaggregated and organisationally complex (Bode & Wagner, 2015). The link between consumption decisions and their impact on the environment is often separated by a dense network of sectoral interdependencies with impacts occurring and interacting across different layers of production systems (Cabernard et al, 2019). This can implicate a sector’s immediate production and upstream suppliers in its overall resource footprint. Locating where environmental impacts occur deeper within country and sector supply chains has only partially been explored due to the scale at which multi-dimensional resource footprinting analysis is undertaken and unpacked.
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