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Financial transactions are increasingly used by consumer apps and financial service providers to estimate consumption-based carbon emissions. This approach promises a low-resource, ultra-fast, and highly scalable approach to measuring emissions at different levels of potential policy intervention--spanning the national, subnational, local, and individual level. Despite this potential, there is a lack of research exploring the validity of this approach to carbon profiling. Here we address this oversight in three ways. First, we provide a step-by-step description of our approach toward estimating carbon footprints from micro-level transaction data generated by more than 100,000 customers of a large retail bank in theUnitedKingdom. Second, we quantitatively compare emission estimates obtained from transaction data with those calculated from a more standard data source used in carbon profiling, the largest household expenditure survey in the United Kingdom. Third, we offer a detailed qualitative comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of transactions versus alternative data sources (such as survey data), across key dimensions including data availability, data quality, and data detail. We find that financial transactions offer a credible alternative to survey-based sources and, if made more widely accessible, could provide important advantages for profiling emissions. These include objective, micro-level data on consumption behaviors, larger sample sizes, and longitudinal, frequent data capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is important in the global mercury (Hg) cycle and is experiencing substantial economic structure transitions. There are pronounced differences in economic development, industrial structure, and consumption patterns across regions in China. However, the impacts of regional economic structure transitions (i.e., production and final demand structures) on Hg emissions in China remain unknown. Here, we reveal the transboundary impacts of changes in regional economic structures on provincial Hg emissions in China. We found that the transitions of production and final demand structures in coastal regions led to Hg emission reductions in China during 2007–2017. In particular, production structure changes in East Coast contributed to 36 metric tons of national Hg emission reduction, where 28 metric tons occurred in other regions (especially Hebei). Its final demand structure transition contributed to 19 metric tons of national emission reduction, where 15 metric tons occurred in other regions (especially Henan). Unfortunately, production structure changes in Northwest and final demand structure changes in Southwest contributed to Hg emission increments in China during 2007–2017. For instance, changes in the final demand structure of Southwest caused 34 metric tons of emission increments, mainly from provinces within the region. Thus, spatially explicit measures for China's Hg emission control can focus on the optimizations of production structure in Northwest and final demand structure in Southwest, as well as the promotion of interregional joint actions between East Coast and North China (especially Hebei and Henan). The findings of this study can inform region‐specific policy decisions and interregional joint efforts to control Hg emissions around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Forum piece describes a collaborative project between engineering and architecture to visualize some of the most influential results from industrial ecology using human‐scale, photorealistic images that are quantitatively accurate. Our goal was to apply visualization theories and practices from art and architecture to address a major communication problem in our field: though inspirational in concept, in practice much industrial ecology research is difficult to comprehend for the average person. Models are large and complex, metrics are esoteric, and results are often reported on a scale that is devoid of personal meaning. Our strategy was to place hidden flows and embodied emissions in plain sight, creating images that show the environmental implications of consumption as absurd insertions into scenes of daily life, at a scale that is relatable and personally meaningful. We also compare with and discuss other artistic efforts around the world in the oeuvre of "Consumption Art," providing historical context. Industrial ecology envisions a world where production systems can incorporate social and environmental implications in real‐time, where policy is informed by our best understanding of trade‐offs and inequities, and where the public has an appreciation for what actions are meaningful, all with the goals of improving quality of life for all while safeguarding the environment and human health. Effective communication of our research is vital to build consensus for policy and action toward this vision, and one under‐appreciated aspect of communication in our field is the sympathetic power of Art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization has been one main driver affecting our whole economy. Thus, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) associated with imports and exports should get addressed in addition to the national emission inventory according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is focused on territorial emissions only. To enable a correct calculation for imports and exports and to find the most emission‐intensive products and their origin, a product‐ and technology‐specific approach would be favorable which has not been applied up to now. This article addresses this research gap in developing and applying such an approach to calculate the GHGs behind consumption of products in Austria. It is based on physical flows combined with life‐cycle‐based emission factors and emission intensities derived from sector‐ and country‐specific energy mix, for calculating all emissions behind the production chain (resources to final products) of products consumed in Austria. The results have shown that consumption of products in Austria leads to about 60% more emissions than those of the national inventory and that the main part of these emissions comes from the provision of products. The most emission‐intensive products are coming from the chemical and the metal industry. In particular, imports are the main driver of these emissions and are more emission intensive than those produced in Austria. As a result, it is necessary to look at practical measures to reduce emissions along the production chain not only in Austria, but especially abroad as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is one of the most important sources of biomass for human society but increasingly contributes to anthropogenic degradation of ecosystems through negative impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, climate change, and ecosystem services. Here we estimate NPPpot agricultural footprint, that is, the level of appropriation of potential net primary production (NPPpot) by global cropland and human‐made pastures from the consumer responsibility (footprint) perspective and reveal the role of international trade. To quantify the NPPpot agricultural footprint, we utilize environmentally extended multi‐regional input–output analysis to attribute the terrestrial potential NPP altered by global cropland and human‐made pastures to the final consumers responsible for pulling the supply chains. We identify the NPPpot of geographically specific cropland area of 186 agricultural crops in 236 countries and we track each of those crops through the global web of international trade and supply chains to the point of final consumption. We show that human society appropriates 20% (13 petagrams of carbon per year) of global potential net primary production by the transformation of natural ecosystems into cropland and human‐made pastures. International trade accounts for 23% of global NPPpot footprint of agriculture. While the two and half billion people living in China and India (the two countries with lowest NPPpot agricultural footprint per capita) appropriate about 16% of the global NPPpot agricultural footprint of cropland and human‐made pastures, the same share is appropriated by only 360 million people living in countries with the highest per capita footprint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The use of global, multiregional input‐output (MRIO) analysis for consumption‐based (footprint) accounting has expanded significantly over the last decade. Most of the global studies on environmental and social impacts associated with consumption or embodied in international trade would have been impossible without the rapid development of extended MRIO databases. We present an overview of the developments in the field of MRIO analysis, in particular as applied to consumption‐based environmental and social footprints. We first provide a discussion of research published on various global MRIO databases and the differences between them, before focusing on the virtual laboratory computing infrastructure for potentially making MRIO databases more accessible for collaborative research, and also for supporting greater sectoral and regional detail. We discuss work that includes a broader range of extensions, in particular the inclusion of social indicators in consumption‐based accounting. We conclude by discussing the need for the development of detailed nested MRIO tables for investigating linkages between regions of different countries, and the applications of the rapidly growing field of global MRIO analysis for assessing a country's performance toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a substance flow analysis (SFA) for copper (Cu) was conducted, in which the inflow, stock, and outflow (in the form of diffuse emissions to soil and water) for Stockholm were estimated for 2013 and compared with a previous study from 1995, hence allowing a discussion on changes over time. A large number of applications containing Cu were analyzed (including power cables, copper alloys, heavy electrical equipment, tap water systems, roofs, cars, various consumer electronics, wood preservatives, and contact cables for the railroad). The results show that the inflow of Cu to Stockholm has increased between 1995 and 2013, both in total and per person, mainly as the result of an increase in heavy electrical equipment, power cables, and cars. The stock remains relatively unchanged, whereas the outflow has increased. For the outflow, the emission increase from brake linings is of greatest quantitative importance, with an estimated 5.8 tonnes annual emission of Cu to the environment of Stockholm in 2013 compared to 3.9 tonnes in 1995. Given that increasing inflows of limited resources drive the global demand, continuous monitoring of flows through society and management of outflow routes are crucial, including improvement of national legislation and regional environmental plans as well as efforts to increase resource-use efficiency and recycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of water resources has traditionally been studied by accounting for the volume of water removed from sources for specific uses. This approach focuses on surface and groundwater only and it ignores that international trade of products with substantial amounts of embodied water can have an impact on domestic water resources. Using current economic and environmental data, we conduct a consumption-based assessment of virtual water flows in the European Union (EU27). We find that the total water footprint (WF) of 2,280 cubic meters (m3) per capita for the EU27 mostly consists of green water use (precipitation stored as soil moisture), which is omitted in the conventional water accounting. Blue water (surface and groundwater.) and gray water use (the volume of freshwater needed to dilute pollutants to meet the applicable water quality standards), which are targeted by current EU water policies, only make up 32% of the total WF. We also find that Europeans imported 585 cubic kilometers (km3) (109 m3) of virtual water, or around 28% of global virtual water trade flows, in 2009. Within Europe, Germany is a key net importer of water through the trade of products in agriculture, the food industry, the chemical sector, and electricity generation. Countries in Southern and Eastern Europe have specialized in water-intensive agriculture and are key exporters of virtual water despite experiencing physical scarcity of water. Our results suggest that there is a need to reconsider water policy in the EU to address water transfers occurring through trade and to grasp the interlinkages between green, blue, and gray water-which are likely to become more important in water-scarce parts of Europe, with a changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food consumption is a local activity related to environmental impacts at different scales. Yet, the link between eating food as a social and cultural practice and the global implications of food consumption has not been sufficiently explored. We adopt a multidisciplinary approach to relate social practices with the biophysical flows of food products at the household level. Focusing on middle-class households in Metro Manila, the Philippines, we conduct qualitative interviews to highlight preferences, habits, and perceptions about food consumption. In parallel, we collect quantitative information on food purchased. We relate our results to national trends by analyzing the recent evolution of national food expenditures. Finally, we review environmental impacts related to main food categories. Our research points to the significance of socioeconomic factors on food consumption, notably the presence of domestic help or the professional situation of household members. One main finding is the identification of eating out as an important and growing trend in Asian cities, which causes a shift of resource consumption and related environmental impacts from the household to the service sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the dynamic relationship between the consumption of goods and services, technological efficiency, and associated resource use, as described by the theory of Jevons' Paradox (JP). A theory is presented about what causes JP, in which resource efficiency savings are eventually overtaken by increases in consumption to produce a net increase in resource use and therefore environmental impacts. An application of the theory was carried out using system dynamics, modeling carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) emissions from private road transport in the UK between 1970 and 2010. The model results indicate the approximate impact of JP within the historical period: a rise in travel consumption of approximately one half and a rise in CO2-eq emissions of approximately one third. The model was used to estimate whether the European Union (EU) goal of a 40% drop in CO2-eq emissions by 2030 is achievable in the road transport sector, by adding interventions, and the results indicate that higher increases in fleet efficiency than are currently forecast, costlier travel, and a reduction in travel consumption would all be required. The theory and model presented in this article highlight the need to implement a system of interventions that can influence the strength and direction of each of the feedback loops within the system being intervened with, if CO2-eq emissions are to be more reliably reduced than they are at present. Further, because the system is constantly evolving, intervening with it requires a responsive, holistic approach, while maintaining focus on a long-term goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the extent to which Japanese people can change their consumption and the corresponding environmental impact. We propose a new analytical framework with a rebound matrix that captures the monetary flow from potential savings to their respending (referred to as rebound). A questionnaire is used to derive the matrix. On average, respondents spent 3.4 million Yen annually, resulting in 12.4 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions in their daily lives. The survey results suggest that acceptable spending reductions would correspond to a CO2 emissions reduction of nearly 6%. However, the CO2 emissions would increase by nearly the same amount when the respondents respend their savable money (rebound CO2 emissions). The annual CO2 emissions and the annually reducible CO2 emissions both increase with the increase in annual expenditure. Consequently, the net CO2 emissions also increase with the increase in annual expenditure. The rebound spending is approximated using the rebound matrix. Finally, it is suggested that the net CO2 emissions can be reduced through lifestyle changes whereby spending on energy items is reduced and the resulting savings are spent on telecommunication, clothes, shoes, education, and housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes how biological ecology models are adapted to analyze the dynamic structure and function of a consumer electronic product 'community.' Treating an entire group of interdependent and continually evolving electronic devices as an ecological community provides a basis for more comprehensive analyses of the energy, material, and waste flows associated with household consumption than would be possible using conventional per product approaches. Results show that, similar to a maturing natural community, the average U.S. household electronic product community evolved from a low-diversity structure dominated by a few products to a highly diverse, evenly distributed community of products between 1990 and 2010. The maturing community of household electronics experienced increased functionality at a community and product level resulting, in part, from introduction of new products, but primarily as a result of increasing ownership of multifunctional products. Multifunctional mobile products are driving increased functionality in a manner similar to a broadly adaptive invasive species, but the community's high functional redundancy, as the result of device convergence, resembles a stable natural community. These results suggest that future strategies to encourage green design, production, and consumption of consumer electronics should focus on minimizing the total number of products owned by maximizing multifunctionality with convergent device design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade transfers social and environmental impacts across national borders. The consumption of forest products often takes place far away from industrial production sites, and mills procure raw material from remote forests. Finland produces about 10% of forest products that are traded internationally, with the majority of its exports destined for other European countries. Here we report and analyze data that demonstrate that international leakage, in relative terms, increased faster than the production of commodities. The international consumption of products made in Finland increased, and an increase in wood imports from Russia provided the raw material for most of the incremental production. The international consumption-production system translated the increasing global demand for Finnish products into increased harvests in Russia, until the Russian customs duties started to increase in 2007. We argue that national and regional policies for the promotion of sustainable consumption and production must be analyzed and assessed from an international, holistic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of papers on industrial ecology, including "Policy Strategies to Promote Eco-Innovation: An Integrated Framework," by Javier Carillo-Hermosilla and colleagues, "Probabilistic Assessment of Industrial Synergistic Systems," by Yung-Chia Hsu and Serge Rohmer and "Embodied Resource Flows and Product Flows: Combining the Absorbing Markov Chain With the Input-Output Model," by Faye Duchin and Stephen H. Levine.

The article presents abstracts on industrial ecology which include the integration of environmental considerations into management-related decision making, a dynamic material flow analysis for strategic construction and demolition waste management in Beijing, China and evaluation of the Chinese tire industry with the use of physical input-output analysis.

Consumer choices affect sustainability of societal systems, and state governments increasingly are interested in environmental impacts of consumption. This article describes a Consumer Environmental Index (CEI) to track the impacts of product purchase, use, and disposal and applies this initial CEI to Washington State in the United States. CEI has modules for product and service use, upstream resource extraction and manufacturing, and downstream disposal. CEI uses hybrid life cycle assessment (LCA) methods, combined with purchasing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Expenditure Survey. For Washington State, when human health and ecosystem toxicity impact was assessed with the TRACI/CalTOX methods, weighted aggregate and per consumer impacts in all categories increased during the 6 years from 2000 to 2005. For impacts per real dollar spent, only the CEI's climate change component declined, falling nearly 7% between 2000 and 2005. Purchasing details in the BLS expenditure surveys enable the CEI to track environmental impact details on 700 individual categories of products and services. For example, sugar, motor oil, and wood heat appear to have serious environmental impacts, whereas recycling of paper, cardboard, and food and beverage container discards can be as effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions as cutting vehicle fuel usage nearly in half. Such results may serve to increase understanding of environmentally effective actions to reduce climate, human health, and ecosystem impacts of consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Households exert an important influence on total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, their consumption behavior is of interest in evaluations of climate policy options and projections of future emission paths. While most evaluations of household consumption and its emissions are based on expenditure only, we use a household consumption model based on functional units (e.g., kg food, person kilometers, living square meters). The goal of this article is to assess changes in consumption with increasing affluence level of households and to compare the allocation of GHG emissions to monetary versus functional units. We find that (1) the model based on functional units provides good bottom-up estimates for greenhouse emissions of Swiss households; (2) quality (price per functional unit) increases with income for many consumption categories, and therefore using functional instead of monetary units leads to a lower increase of greenhouse gas emissions with income; (3) the relevance of GHG emissions from goods and mobility will increase. We conclude that using household models based on monetary units only overestimates the impact of marginal consumption and neglects the potential of decoupling income and environmental impact by consuming better instead of more. For sustainable consumption, research and policy should aim at preventing goods of higher quality from having higher environmental impact in order to benefit from the increasing quality orientation with rising income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on industrial ecology published in the volume 14, number 1 issue of this journal which include the effect of household consumption and options for change, the impact of life cycle cost information on consumer investment decisions about eco-innovation, and an analysis of standby consumption in household using a practice theory approach.

This study is a comparative life-cycle assessment (LCA) of two competing digital video disc (DVD) rental networks: the e-commerce option, where the customer orders the movies online, and the traditional business option, where the customer goes to the rental store to rent a movie. The analytical framework proposed is for a customer living in the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. The primary energy and environmental performance for both networks are presented using a multicriterion LCA. The package selected by the traditional network is responsible for 67% of the difference in total energy consumption of the two alternatives. Results show that the e-commerce alternative consumed 33% less energy and emitted 40% less CO2 than the traditional option. A set of sensitivity analyses test the influence of distance traveled, transportation mode, and reuse of DVD and DVD packaging on the final results. The mode of transportation used by the customer in the traditional business model also affects global emissions and energy consumption. The customer walking to the store is by far the best option in the traditional network; however, the e-commerce option performed comparatively better despite all transportation modes tested. A novel economic indicator, ESAL, is used to compare different transportation modes based on the level of stress exerted on the pavement. The two networks are compared on the basis of cost accounting; consistent with its energy and environmental advantages, the e-commerce network also exerts lesser economic impact, by $1.17, for the functional unit tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an account of global resource extraction for the year 1999 by material groups, world regions, and development status. The account is based on materials flow analysis methodology and provides benchmark information for political strategies toward sustainable resource management. It shows that currently around 50 thousand megatons of resources are extracted yearly on a global scale, which results in a yearly global average resource use of around 8 tonnes per capita. Assuming further growth in world regions not yet close to the levels of resource use in the industrial cores--such as India or China--numbers could easily double once these parts of the world come to fully incorporate the industrial mode of production and consumption. This article contributes to information on resource use indicators, complementing and enriching information from economic accounting in order to facilitate political measures toward a sustainable use of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To focus Danish product-oriented environmental policy, a study applying extended input-output analysis has been performed, identifying the most important product groups from an environmental perspective. The environmental impacts are analyzed from three different perspectives--the supply perspective, the consumption perspective, and the process perspective--differing primarily in their system delimitation. The top ten environmentally most important product groups (out of 138 industry products and 98 final consumption groups) are listed for each of the three perspectives, using both total environmental impact and environmental impact intensity as ranking principles. The study covers all substances that contribute significantly to the environmental impact categories of global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, nutrient enrichment, photochemical ozone formation, ecotoxicity, human toxicity, and nature occupation. The differences in results between the three perspectives are elaborated and their policy relevance discussed. The top ten product groups account for a surprisingly large share of the total environmental impact of Danish production and consumption (up to 45%, depending upon the perspective). This implies that product-oriented environmental policy may achieve large improvements by focusing on a rather small number of product groups. Both imported products and products produced for export in general cause more environmental impact than products produced in Denmark for the Danish market. Especially noticeable are the export of meat and ship transport. This leads to the recommendation to include specific policy measures targeting both foreign producers and foreign markets. Because of its relatively large input of labor, public consumption is found to have a much smaller environmental impact intensity than private consumption. The results confirm results of other similar studies, but are more detailed and have lower uncertainty, due to a number of improvements in data and methodology. A short presentation of the methodology is provided as background information, although this is not the main focus of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the environmental effects of resource consumption at a subnational level (by Cardiff, the capital city of Wales), using the Ecological Footprint as a measure of impact assessment. The article begins by providing a short critique of the Footprint methodology and the limitations of methods traditionally used to calculate national Footprint accounts. We then describe the Footprint methodology developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute to overcome some of these problems and used as the basis of the Reducing Wales' Ecological Footprint project, of which the Cardiff study has been a part. The main portion of this article focuses on presenting and discussing the Footprint results for Cardiff. The Ecological Footprint of household consumption in Cardiff will be presented using the international Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP). Based on the results, we found that the areas of consumption that are a priority for Cardiff in terms of reducing resource use are food and drink, passenger transport (car and aviation), domestic fuel consumption, waste, and tourism. We also discuss how these findings have been presented to the Cardiff Council. We report on the initial reactions of policy officers to the Footprint results and how the Council plans to use them to influence policy decisions relating to sustainability. Finally, in the Conclusions section, we briefly explain the value of applying the Ecological Footprint at a subnational level and its value as an evidence-based tool for sustainability decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A promising way to reduce environmental impacts of consumer expenditure is through the encouragement of more sustainable consumption patterns. Consumers cause environmental impacts both directly, such as by fuel use in personal cars, and indirectly, by paying for the production of consumables. With increased international trade, the indirect environmental impacts are difficult to determine because a portion of the emissions occurs in different geographical regions. Many previous studies have unrealistically assumed that imports are produced using domestic production technology. For countries with diverging technology and energy mixes the likely errors are significant. This study applies a methodology that explicitly includes technology differences to the case of Norwegian households. It is found that a significant portion of pollution is embodied in Norwegian household imports. Further, a disproportionately large amount of pollution is embodied in imports from developing countries. Overall, as in previous studies, we find that mobility and food are most important in terms of household environmental impacts. By analyzing the imports in more detail we find that for some sectors the majority of emissions occur in foreign regions; in particular, this is true for food, business services, clothing, chemicals, furniture, cars, agriculture, textiles, and most manufactured products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article quantifies and ranks the environmental pressure caused by different product groups consumed in Sweden. This is done using information from economic and environmental statistics. An analysis for the year 1998 is performed for approximately 50 product groups using input-output analysis. This type of analysis has some major advantages for integrated product policy (IPP) purposes: the underlying data are regularly updated, the data systems are being harmonized by international standards, and the connection between environmental goals and IPP goals can be investigated. This article summarizes two Swedish reports, one for the Producer Responsibility Committee and one for the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The results show that the volume of consumption is an important factor in environmental pressure from products as well as impact intensities. The most important product categories for private consumption are petroleum products, electricity, construction, and food and beverages, as well as transport. Possibilities of building indicators for IPP are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research and analysis presented in this special issue shows that the same limited number of consumption categories are consistently revealed to be responsible for the largest share of environmental impact: mobility (automobile and air transport), food (meat, poultry, fish, and dairy followed by plant-based food), and residential energy use in the house (heating, cooling, electrical appliances, and lighting). It appears that differences in impact per euro between the product groupings are relatively limited, so it is essential to reduce the life-cycle impacts of products as such, rather than to shift expenditures to less impact-intensive product groupings. Furthermore, the effectiveness of expenditure on material products to improve quality of life leaves much room for improvement. Environmentally extended input-output (EEIO) tables probably form, in this field, the most appropriate information support tool for priority setting, prospective assessment of options, scenario analysis, and monitoring. A clear benefit would result from integrating the input-output (IO) tables in the report to Eurostat of the 25 individual countries that make up the European Union (EU), with other officially available information on emissions and resources use, into a 60-sector EEIO table for the EU. This, obviously, would be the first step toward more detailed tables. Three strategies are suggested to realize the additional, desirable detail of 150 sectors or more, each achievable at an increasing time horizon and with increasing effort: (1) developing further the current CEDA EU25 table; (2) building a truly European detailed input-output table accepting the restrictions of existing data gathering procedures; and (3) as (2), but developing new, dedicated data gathering and classification procedures. In all cases, a key issue is harmonizing classification systems for industry sectors, consumer expenditure categories, and product classifications (as in import/export statistics) in such a way that data sets may adequately be linked to input-output tables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As house size increases, resource use in buildings goes up, more land is occupied, increased impermeable surface results in more storm-water runoff, construction costs rise, and energy consumption increases. In new, single-family houses constructed in the United States, living area per family member has increased by a factor of 3 since the 1950s. In comparing the energy performance of compact (small) and large single-family houses, we find that a small house built to only moderate energy-performance standards uses substantially less energy for heating and cooling than a large house built to very high energy-performance standards. This article examines some of the trends in single-family house building in the United States and provides recommendations for downsizing houses to improve quality and resource efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial ecologists have modeled with precision the material foundations of industrial systems, but given less attention to the demand for products and the drivers of structural changes in these systems. This article suggests that time use data complement data on monetary expenditure and can be used to elucidate the everyday life context in which the changes in the economy take place. It builds upon the claim that goods are not direct sources of utility, but enter specific household activities as inputs. A second argument for the proposed approach is that it can be used to introduce and foster human agency in analyses of production systems. The article uses Finnish time use survey data, consumption expenditure data, and data on the sectoral energy intensities of financial output in the Finnish economy. First, a measure of the energy intensity of activities is derived by relating consumer time use and the required direct and indirect energy requirements. Second, the results include a decomposition of changes in the energy requirements of private consumption in Finland during the 1990s. It is shown that although the same activities on average require increasing energy inputs per unit of time, Finns have simultaneously changed the structure of their everyday life toward less energy-intensive activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Input-output modeling is a useful tool for tracing environmental impacts of consumption. Because it includes impacts originating from production layers of infinite order (capturing the entire economy), input-output modeling is highly relevant for studies operating in a life-cycle context. In this article we show how the input-output approach can be used to enumerate the problem of sustainable consumption. Based on a literature survey including research done by the authors we present measures of the emissions of carbon dioxide at different spatial levels: nation, city, and household. Further, we take more environmental effects into account and introduce the concept of environmental efficiency by combining input-output modeling and data envelopment analysis. Finally, we discuss the policy relevance of the different measures. The article demonstrates that input-output modeling has a wide range of life-cycle oriented applications when combined with other data sources such as detailed trade statistics, foreign input-output and environmental statistics, and household expenditure data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential for second-hand markets to reduce demand for new goods is investigated. Using a variant of an economic model originally developed by Anderson and Ginsburgh, the physical implications for material use are explored. The second-hand market grows if transaction costs decrease or if product lifetime increases. In this model, growth of the second-hand market reduces demand for new goods if there are waste used goods that can be brought into the market. But if there is not a ready supply of waste used goods, growth of the second-hand market can increase demand for new goods, thereby increasing material consumption. Moreover, even when second-hand sales reduce demand for new goods, it is typically not on a one-for-one basis. The extent to which the purchase of used goods replaces the purchase of new goods is shown to be an explicit function of the relative value provided by used versus new goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]