Traded Plastic, Traded Impacts? Designing Counterfactual Scenarios to Assess Environmental Impacts of Global Plastic Waste Trade.

The global trade of plastic waste has raised environmental concerns, especially regarding pollution in waste-importing countries. However, the overall environmental contribution remains unclear due to uncertain treatment shares between handling plastic waste abroad and domestically. Here, we conduct a life cycle assessment of global plastic waste trade in 2022 across 18 countries and six plastic waste types, alongside three "nontrade" counterfactual scenarios. By considering the required cycling rate, which balances importers' costs and recycling revenues, we find that the trade resulted in lower environmental impacts than treating domestically with the average treatment mix. The trade scenario alone reduced climate change impact by 2.85 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent and mitigated damages to ecosystem quality, human health, and resource availability by 12 species-years, 6200 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and 1.4 billion United States dollars (USD in 2013), respectively. These results underscore the significance of recognizing plastic waste trade as a pivotal factor in regulating global secondary plastic production when formulating a global plastics treaty.

The legacy environmental footprints of manufactured capital.

The foundations of today's societies are provided by manufactured capital accumulation driven by investment decisions through time. Reconceiving how the manufactured assets are harnessed in the production-consumption system is at the heart of the paradigm shifts necessary for long-term sustainability. Our research integrates 50 years of economic and environmental data to provide the global legacy environmental footprint (LEF) and unveil the historical material extractions, greenhouse gas emissions, and health impacts accrued in today's manufactured capital. We show that between 1995 and 2019, global LEF growth outpaced GDP and population growth, and the current high level of national capital stocks has been heavily relying on global supply chains in metals. The LEF shows a larger or growing gap between developed economies (DEs) and less-developed economies (LDEs) while economic returns from global asset supply chains disproportionately flow to DEs, resulting in a double burden for LDEs. Our results show that ensuring best practice in asset production while prioritizing well-being outcomes is essential in addressing global inequalities and protecting the environment. Achieving this requires a paradigm shift in sustainability science and policy, as well as in green finance decision-making, to move beyond the focus on the resource use and emissions of daily operations of the assets and instead take into account the long-term environmental footprints of capital accumulation.

Offshore Wind Energy and Marine Biodiversity in the North Sea: Life Cycle Impact Assessment for Benthic Communities.

Large-scale offshore wind energy developments represent a major player in the energy transition but are likely to have (negative or positive) impacts on marine biodiversity. Wind turbine foundations and sour protection often replace soft sediment with hard substrates, creating artificial reefs for sessile dwellers. Offshore wind farm (OWF) furthermore leads to a decrease in (and even a cessation of) bottom trawling, as this activity is prohibited in many OWFs. The long-term cumulative impacts of these changes on marine biodiversity remain largely unknown. This study integrates such impacts into characterization factors for life cycle assessment based on the North Sea and illustrates its application. Our results suggest that there are no net adverse impacts during OWF operation on benthic communities inhabiting the original sand bottom within OWFs. Artificial reefs could lead to a doubling of species richness and a two-order-of-magnitude increase of species abundance. Seabed occupation will also incur in minor biodiversity losses in the soft sediment. Our results were not conclusive concerning the trawling avoidance benefits. The developed characterization factors quantifying biodiversity-related impacts from OWF operation provide a stepping stone toward a better representation of biodiversity in life cycle assessment.

Opportunities and risks of internet of things (IoT) technologies for circular business models: A literature review.

In recent years, circular business models (CBM) have become an inevitable requirement to foster improvements in environmental performance. However, the current literature rarely discusses the link between Internet of Things (IoT) and CBM. This paper first identifies four IoT capabilities including monitoring, tracking, optimization and design evolution for improving CBM performance based on the ReSOLVE framework. In a second step, a systematic literature review using the PRISMA approach analyzes how these capabilities contribute to 6 R and CBM through the CBM-6R and CBM-IoT cross-section heatmaps and relationship frameworks, followed by assessing the quantitative impacts of IoT on potential energy saving in CBM. Finally, challenges are analyzed for the realization of IoT-enabled CBM. The results show that the assessments of Loop and Optimize business models dominate current studies. IoT plays a significant role in these business models respectively through tracking, monitoring and optimization capabilities. While (quantitative) case studies for Virtualize, Exchange and Regenerate CBM are substantially needed. IoT holds the potential to reduce energy consumption by around 20-30% for referenced applications in the literature. However, the IoT hardware, software and protocol energy consumption, interoperability, security and financial investment might become main obstacles for the wider use of IoT in CBM.

Electric vehicle batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand by as early as 2030.

The energy transition will require a rapid deployment of renewable energy (RE) and electric vehicles (EVs) where other transit modes are unavailable. EV batteries could complement RE generation by providing short-term grid services. However, estimating the market opportunity requires an understanding of many socio-technical parameters and constraints. We quantify the global EV battery capacity available for grid storage using an integrated model incorporating future EV battery deployment, battery degradation, and market participation. We include both in-use and end-of-vehicle-life use phases and find a technical capacity of 32-62 terawatt-hours by 2050. Low participation rates of 12%-43% are needed to provide short-term grid storage demand globally. Participation rates fall below 10% if half of EV batteries at end-of-vehicle-life are used as stationary storage. Short-term grid storage demand could be met as early as 2030 across most regions. Our estimates are generally conservative and offer a lower bound of future opportunities.

Assessing the European Electric-Mobility Transition: Emissions from Electric Vehicle Manufacturing and Use in Relation to the EU Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets.

The European Union (EU) has set a 37.5% GHG reduction target in 2030 for the mobility sector, relative to 1990 levels. This requires increasing the share of zero-emission passenger vehicles, mainly in the form of electric vehicles (EVs). This study calculates future GHG emissions related to passenger vehicle manufacturing and use based on stated policy goals of EU Member States for EV promotion. Under these policies, by 2040 the stock of EVs would be about 73 times larger than those of 2020, contributing to a cumulative in-use emission reduction of 2.0 gigatons CO2-eq. Nevertheless, this stated EV adoption will not be sufficiently fast to reach the EU's GHG reduction targets, and some of the GHG environmental burdens may be shifted to the EV battery manufacturing countries. To achieve the 2030 reduction targets, the EU as a whole needs to accelerate the phase-out of internal combustion engine vehicles and transit to e-mobility at the pace of the most ambitious Member States, such that EVs can comprise at least 55% of the EU passenger vehicle fleet in 2030. An accelerated decarbonization of the electricity system will become the most critical prerequisite for minimizing GHG emissions from both EV manufacturing and in-use stages.

Impact assessment of the EU import ban on Indonesian palm oil: Using environmental extended multi-scale MRIO.

Under the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) II, the EU will phase out the use of palm oil for biodiesel feedstock. Environmental concerns are the main reasons for the EU to implement this initiative. This study analyzes the economic and environmental impact of EU import ban to Indonesia at provincial level, using 2 scenarios (a direct and direct-indirect import ban). The analysis is performed using a global-subnational Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) with environmental extensions. This study shows that a direct (combined) import ban of palm oil by the EU will reduce Indonesia's GDP by -0.2 % (-0.26 %) and employment by -0.12 % (-0.54 %) from baseline. At provincial level, Riau, North Sumatra, Lampung, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan experience the highest impact on their domestic product (more than -0.5 %). Under a direct import ban, job losses mostly happen in outside Java (96.26 %) and in the oilseeds sector (75.21 %). Low and middle skilled jobs decline more than high skilled jobs and count for 95 % of the total loss. This study also shows that a direct (combined) import ban reduces national GHG emissions by -0.19 % (-0.24 %) and total land use by -0.48 % (-0.6 %). Potential carbon sequestration can be 34.55 (42.27) million tons C equivalent to 149.74 (182.67) million tons CO2e under assumption a full rewilding from the reduction of land use in oilseed. Our study shows that an EU import ban on Indonesian palm oil has relatively small economic and environmental impacts at national and provincial level. Yet, this policy can create potential carbon sequestration that can absorb CO2 by vegetation and soil.

Environmental Impacts of Global Offshore Wind Energy Development until 2040.

Continuous reduction in the levelized cost of energy is driving the rapid development of offshore wind energy (OWE). It is thus important to evaluate, from an environmental perspective, the implications of expanding OWE capacity on a global scale. Nevertheless, this assessment must take into account various scenarios for the growth of different OWE technologies in the near future. To evaluate the environmental impacts of future OWE development, this paper conducts a prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) including parameterized supply chains with high technology resolution. Results show that OWE-related environmental impacts, including climate change, marine ecotoxicity, marine eutrophication, and metal depletion, are reduced by ∼20% per MWh from 2020 to 2040 due to various developments including size expansion, lifetime extension, and technology innovation. At the global scale, 2.6-3.6 Gt CO2 equiv of greenhouse gas emissions are emitted cumulatively due to OWE deployment from 2020 to 2040. The manufacturing of primary raw materials, such as steel and fibers, is the dominant contributor to impacts. Overall, 6-9% of the cumulative OWE-related environmental impacts could be reduced by end-of-life (EoL) recycling and the substitution of raw materials.

Global Human Consumption Threatens Key Biodiversity Areas.

Key biodiversity areas (KBAs) are critical regions for preserving global biodiversity. KBAs are identified by their importance to biodiversity rather than their legal status. As such, KBAs are often under pressure from human activities. KBAs can encompass many different land-use types (e.g., cropland, pastures) and land-use intensities. Here, we combine a global economic model with spatial mapping to estimate the biodiversity impacts of human land use in KBAs. We find that global human land use within KBAs causes disproportionate biodiversity losses. While land use within KBAs accounts for only 7% of total land use, it causes 16% of the potential global plant loss and 12% of the potential global vertebrate loss. The consumption of animal products accounts for more than half of biodiversity loss within KBAs, with housing the second largest at around 10%. Bovine meat is the largest single contributor to this loss, at around 31% of total biodiversity loss. In terms of land use, lightly grazed pasture contributes the most, accounting for around half of all potential species loss. This loss is concentrated mainly in middle- and low-income regions with rich biodiversity. International trade is an important driver of loss, accounting for 22-29% of total potential plant and vertebrate loss. Our comprehensive global, trade-linked analysis provides insights into maintaining the integrity of KBAs and global biodiversity.

Assessing China's potential for reducing primary copper demand and associated environmental impacts in the context of energy transition and "Zero waste" policies.

To conserve resources and enhance the environmental performance, China has launched the "Zero waste" concept, focused on reutilization of solid waste and recovery of materials, including copper. Although several studies have assessed the copper demand and recycling, there is a lack of understanding on how different waste management options would potentially reduce primary copper demand and associated environmental impacts in China in the context of energy transition. This study addresses this gap in view of a transition to low-carbon energy system and the optimization of copper waste management combining MFA and LCA approaches. Six types of waste streams (C&DW, ELV, WEEE, IEW, MSW, ICW) are investigated in relation to various "Zero waste" strategies including reduction, reuse (repair, remanufacturing or refurbishment), recycling and transition from informal to formal waste management. Under present Chinese policies, reuse and recycling of copper containing products will lead to a somewhat lower dependency on primary copper in 2100 (11187Gg), as well as lower total GHG emissions (64869 Gg CO2-eq.) and cumulative energy demand (1.18x10^12 MJ). Maximizing such "Zero waste" options may lead to a further reduction, resulting in 65% potential reduction of primary copper demand, around 55% potential reduction of total GHG emissions and total cumulative energy demand in 2100. Several policy actions are proposed to provide insights into future waste management in China as well as some of the challenges involved.

Biodiversity Loss from Freshwater Use for China's Electricity Generation.

Electricity generation has two major, under-investigated impacts on freshwater biodiversity due to its water use: the consumption of freshwater and thermal emissions to freshwater. Here, we analyze the spatiotemporal freshwater biodiversity impacts of China's electric power system and the driving factors for these impacts. We show that between 2008 and 2017, the freshwater consumption of electricity generation peaked in 2013 (13.6 Gm3). Meanwhile, the freshwater consumption factor of China's electricity generation decreased from 3.2 to 2.0 L/kWh. However, due to increasing thermal emissions, the biodiversity loss via freshwater use increased from 1.1 × 108 in 2008 to 1.6 × 108 PDF m3 year. The overall biodiversity loss per unit of electricity generation decreased from 3.2 × 10-5 to 2.5 × 10-5 PDF m3 year/kWh. Biodiversity loss from thermal pollution is 60% higher than that driven by water consumption. Electricity transmission results in the shifting of biodiversity impacts across regions. The results show that 15% of total biodiversity loss was embedded in transmission networks. In terms of electrical power system drivers of biodiversity loss, the total generation was the main driving factor of the increase in loss (rather than shifts in generation type, for example). Our results indicate the necessity of assessing the biodiversity impacts of electricity generation and incorporating them into energy system planning.

Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend.

A dietary shift from animal-based foods to plant-based foods in high-income nations could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from direct agricultural production and increase carbon sequestration if resulting spared land was restored to its antecedent natural vegetation. We estimate this double effect by simulating the adoption of the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet by 54 high-income nations representing 68% of global gross domestic product and 17% of population. Our results show that such dietary change could reduce annual agricultural production emissions of high-income nations' diets by 61% while sequestering as much as 98.3 (55.6-143.7) GtCO2 equivalent, equal to approximately 14 years of current global agricultural emissions until natural vegetation matures. This amount could potentially fulfil high-income nations' future sum of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) obligations under the principle of equal per capita CDR responsibilities. Linking land, food, climate and public health policy will be vital to harnessing the opportunities of a double climate dividend.

A global overview of developments of urban and rural household GHG footprints from 2005 to 2015.

Household greenhouse-gas footprints (HGFs) are an important source of global emissions but can vary widely between urban and rural areas. These differences are important during the ongoing rapid, global, urbanization process. We provide a global overview of HGFs considering this urban-rural divide. We include 16 global regions, representing 80% of HGFs and analyze the drivers of urban and rural HGFs between 2005 and 2015. We do this by linking multi-regional input-output (MRIO) tables with household consumption surveys (HCSs) from 43 regions. Urban HGFs from high-income regions continue to dominate, at 75% of total HGFs over 2010-2015. However, we find a significant increase of rural HGFs (at 1% yr-1), reflecting a convergent trend between urban and rural HGFs. High-income regions were responsible for the majority of urban HGFs (USA: 27.8% and EU: 18.7% in 2015), primarily from transport and services, while rural HGFs were predominately driven in emerging regions (China: 24% and India: 21.8% in 2015) mainly driven by food and housing. We find that improving emission intensities do not offset the increase in HGFs from increasing consumption and population during the period. A broad transition of expenditure from food to housing in rural areas and to transport in urban areas highlights the importance of reducing the emission intensities of food, housing, and transportation. Counterintuitively, urbanization increased HGFs in emerging regions, resulting in a >1% increase in China, Indonesia, India and Mexico over the period, due to large migrations of people moving from rural to urban areas.

An overview of the waste hierarchy framework for analyzing the circularity in construction and demolition waste management in Europe.

The construction sector is the biggest driver of resource consumption and waste generation in Europe. The European Union (EU) is making efforts to move from its traditional linear resource and waste management system in the construction sector to a level of high circularity. Based on the theory of circular economy, a new paradigm called waste hierarchy was introduced in the EU Waste Framework Directive. This work uses the framework of the waste hierarchy to analyze the practice of construction and demolition waste (CDW) management in Europe. We explore the evolution of the waste hierarchy in Europe and how it compares with the circular economy. Then, based on the framework, we analyze the performance of CDW management in each EU member state. Innovative treatment methods of CDW, focusing on waste concrete, is investigated. This brings insight into optimizing and upgrading the CDW management in light of advanced technologies and steering the pathway for transitioning the EU towards a circular society.

Global greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial building materials and mitigation strategies to 2060.

Building stock growth around the world drives extensive material consumption and environmental impacts. Future impacts will be dependent on the level and rate of socioeconomic development, along with material use and supply strategies. Here we evaluate material-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for residential and commercial buildings along with their reduction potentials in 26 global regions by 2060. For a middle-of-the-road baseline scenario, building material-related emissions see an increase of 3.5 to 4.6 Gt CO2eq yr-1 between 2020-2060. Low- and lower-middle-income regions see rapid emission increase from 750 Mt (22% globally) in 2020 and 2.4 Gt (51%) in 2060, while higher-income regions shrink in both absolute and relative terms. Implementing several material efficiency strategies together in a High Efficiency (HE) scenario could almost half the baseline emissions. Yet, even in this scenario, the building material sector would require double its current proportional share of emissions to meet a 1.5 °C-compatible target.

Improving Subnational Input-Output Analyses Using Regional Trade Data: A Case-Study and Comparison.

Environmentally extended input-output analysis (EE-IO) is widely used for evaluating environmental performance (i.e., footprint) at a national level. Many studies have extended their analyses to the subnational level to guide regional policies. One promising method is to embed nationally disaggregated input-output tables, e.g., nesting a provincial level table, into a global multiregional input-output table. However, a widely used approach to environmental assessment generally disaggregates the trade structure at the national level to the provincial level using the same proportions (proportionality assumption). This means that the subnational spatial heterogeneities on international trade are not fully captured. By calculating the Chinese provincial material footprint (MF) based on two approaches-the proportionality assumption and the actual customs statistics-in the same framework, we evaluate the quantitative differences when the proportionality assumption is addressed. By computing MF for 23 aggregated resources across 30 Chinese provinces, our results show for countries with large material flows like China, estimating subnational-level international trade by proportionality assumption may lead to significant differences in material flows at both the disaggregated and aggregated levels. An important follow-up question is whether these differences are also relevant for other footprints.

Provincial and sector-level material footprints in China.

High-income countries often outsource material demands to poorer countries along with the associated environmental damage. This phenomenon can also occur within (large) countries, such as China, which was responsible for 24 to 30% of the global material footprint (MF) between 2007 and 2010. Understanding the distribution and development of China's MF is hence critical for resource efficiency and circular economy ambitions globally. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of China's MF at the provincial and sectoral levels. We combine provincial-level input-output data with sector- and province-specific trade data, detailed material extraction data, and the global input-output database EXIOBASE. We find that some provinces have MFs equivalent to medium-sized, high-income countries and limited evidence of material decoupling. Lower-income regions with high levels of material extraction can have an MF per capita as large as developed provinces due to much higher material intensities. The higher-income south-coastal provinces have lower MF per capita than equally developed provinces. This finding relates partly to differences in economic structure but indicates the potential for improvement across provinces. Investment via capital formation is up to 4 times more resource-intensive than consumption and drives 49 to 86% of provincial-level MFs (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average is 37%). Resource-efficient production, efficient use of capital goods/infrastructure, and circular design are essential for reductions in China's MF. Policy efforts to shift to a high-quality development model may reduce material intensities, preferably while avoiding the further outsourcing of high-intensity activities to other provinces or lower-income countries.

Increasing impacts of land use on biodiversity and carbon sequestration driven by population and economic growth.

Biodiversity and ecosystem service losses driven by land-use change are expected to intensify as a growing and more affluent global population requires more agricultural and forestry products, and teleconnections in the global economy lead to increasing remote environmental responsibility. By combining global biophysical and economic models, we show that, between the years 2000 and 2011, overall population and economic growth resulted in increasing total impacts on bird diversity and carbon sequestration globally, despite a reduction of land-use impacts per unit of gross domestic product (GDP). The exceptions were North America and Western Europe, where there was a reduction of forestry and agriculture impacts on nature accentuated by the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Biodiversity losses occurred predominantly in Central and Southern America, Africa and Asia with international trade an important and growing driver. In 2011, 33% of Central and Southern America and 26% of Africa's biodiversity impacts were driven by consumption in other world regions. Overall, cattle farming is the major driver of biodiversity loss, but oil seed production showed the largest increases in biodiversity impacts. Forestry activities exerted the highest impact on carbon sequestration, and also showed the largest increase in the 2000-2011 period. Our results suggest that to address the biodiversity crisis, governments should take an equitable approach recognizing remote responsibility, and promote a shift of economic development towards activities with low biodiversity impacts.

BRIC and MINT countries' environmental impacts rising despite alleviative consumption patterns.

The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and MINT countries (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey) shifted the economic weight from developed to emerging countries. They will continue to grow rapidly by population and gross domestic product (GDP), which could also imply environmental changes. We use the environmentally extended multi-regional input-output database EXIOBASE in a consumption-based approach to assess carbon, land, and water footprints of four income groups within each of these emerging economies in 2050 compared to our base year 2010. We estimate that consumption changes make environmental impacts increase by a factor of 1.6 (for Russia's water footprint) to a factor of 7.0 (for Nigeria's carbon footprint). This rise is mostly driven by GDP growth, but often also by population growth. Changes in consumption patterns due to income growth, however, attenuate the effect. The attenuation appeared to be much stronger for water (for India and Indonesia over 50%) than for land or carbon footprints. It is hence important that forward-looking modelling exercises account for different income categories and related expenditure patterns. The results further indicate how much our technologies must improve to compensate for impact increases induced by rising consumption. To cope with that, not only established economies, but also some BRIC and MINT countries, especially Russia and China, must increase their efforts towards environmental sustainability.