IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i2p542-d132374.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Regional Analysis of the Life Cycle Environmental and Economic Tradeoffs of Different Economic Growth Paths

Author

Listed:
  • Weiwei Mo

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA)

  • Darline Balen

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA)

  • Marianna Moura

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA)

  • Kevin H. Gardner

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA)

Abstract

Different economic development strategies may result in varied socioeconomic and environmental synergies or tradeoffs, suggesting an opportunity for environmentally conscious planning. To understand such synergies or tradeoffs, a dynamic environmental life cycle assessment was conducted for eleven groups of New Hampshire industries. Historical state level Gross Domestic Product (GDP)-by-industry data was combined with economic input-output analysis to calculate the direct and life cycle energy use, freshwater use, greenhouse gas emissions, and eutrophication potential of each industry on a yearly basis for the period of 1997–2012. The future development of agriculture, traditional manufacturing, high tech, and tourism industries were investigated based on government projections. Total life cycle impacts of the 11 industries were found to represent around three to seven times those of direct impacts, indicating the significance of the supply chain impacts. Traditional manufacturing has the highest life cycle impacts even though it contributes to less than 10% of the state GDP. Future development of high tech was found to be the best strategy to increase GDP while imposing the least additional environmental impacts. Tourism presents relatively high impacts in terms of freshwater use and eutrophication potential, and a change in recreational style might be able to reduce its impacts.

Suggested Citation

  • Weiwei Mo & Darline Balen & Marianna Moura & Kevin H. Gardner, 2018. "A Regional Analysis of the Life Cycle Environmental and Economic Tradeoffs of Different Economic Growth Paths," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-16, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:2:p:542-:d:132374
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/2/542/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/2/542/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raimund Bleischwitz & Paul J.J. Welfens & ZhongXiang Zhang (ed.), 2011. "International Economics of Resource Efficiency," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-7908-2601-2, April.
    2. Agostinho, Feni & Ortega, Enrique, 2012. "Integrated food, energy and environmental services production as an alternative for small rural properties in Brazil," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 103-114.
    3. Raymond J. G. M. Florax & Chiara M. Travisi & Peter Nijkamp, 2005. "A meta-analysis of the willingness to pay for reductions in pesticide risk exposure," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 32(4), pages 441-467, December.
    4. Zhang, Bing & Bi, Jun & Fan, Ziying & Yuan, Zengwei & Ge, Junjie, 2008. "Eco-efficiency analysis of industrial system in China: A data envelopment analysis approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1-2), pages 306-316, December.
    5. Matthew J Eckelman & Jodi Sherman, 2016. "Environmental Impacts of the U.S. Health Care System and Effects on Public Health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-14, June.
    6. Sergiy Smetana & Christine Tamásy & Alexander Mathys & Volker Heinz, 2015. "Sustainability and regions: sustainability assessment in regional perspective," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(4), pages 163-186, November.
    7. Gössling, Stefan & Peeters, Paul & Ceron, Jean-Paul & Dubois, Ghislain & Patterson, Trista & Richardson, Robert B., 2005. "The eco-efficiency of tourism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 417-434, September.
    8. Raimund Bleischwitz, 2011. "Resource Efficiency," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 15(5), pages 644-646, October.
    9. Ayres, Robert & Ferrer, Geraldo & Van Leynseele, Tania, 1997. "Eco-efficiency, asset recovery and remanufacturing," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 557-574, October.
    10. Kurka, Thomas, 2013. "Application of the analytic hierarchy process to evaluate the regional sustainability of bioenergy developments," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 393-402.
    11. Chen, Shaoqing & Chen, Bin, 2017. "Coupling of carbon and energy flows in cities: A meta-analysis and nexus modelling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 774-783.
    12. Hubacek, Klaus & Giljum, Stefan, 2003. "Applying physical input-output analysis to estimate land appropriation (ecological footprints) of international trade activities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 137-151, February.
    13. Hoekstra, Rutger & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2006. "Constructing physical input-output tables for environmental modeling and accounting: Framework and illustrations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 375-393, September.
    14. Livio D. DeSimone & Frank Popoff, 2000. "Eco-Efficiency: The Business Link to Sustainable Development," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262541092, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liliana Avelar-Sosa & Jorge L. García-Alcaraz & José M. Mejía-Muñoz & Aidé A. Maldonado-Macías & Giner Alor Hernández, 2018. "Government Support and Market Proximity: Exploring Their Relationship with Supply Chain Agility and Financial performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-20, July.
    2. Anna Murawska & Elżbieta Goryńska-Goldmann, 2023. "Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Agricultural and Industrial Sectors—Change Trends, Economic Conditions, and Country Classification: Evidence from the European Union," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-25, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chengpeng Lu & Xiaoli Pan & Xingpeng Chen & Jinhuang Mao & Jiaxing Pang & Bing Xue, 2021. "Modeling of Waste Flow in Industrial Symbiosis System at City-Region Level: A Case Study of Jinchang, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Rutger Hoekstra & Marco Janssen, 2006. "Environmental responsibility and policy in a two-country dynamic input-output model," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 61-84.
    3. Christina Pakusch & Gunnar Stevens & Alexander Boden & Paul Bossauer, 2018. "Unintended Effects of Autonomous Driving: A Study on Mobility Preferences in the Future," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-22, July.
    4. Xiaoman Liu & Dong Jiang & Qiao Wang & Huiming Liu & Jin Li & Zhuo Fu, 2016. "Evaluating the Sustainability of Nature Reserves Using an Ecological Footprint Method: A Case Study in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Cédric Gossart, 2015. "Rebound effects and ICT : a review of the literature," Post-Print hal-01258112, HAL.
    6. Raimund Bleischwitz, 2012. "Towards a resource policy—unleashing productivity dynamics and balancing international distortions," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 24(2), pages 135-144, June.
    7. Yang Li & An-Chi Liu & Shu-Mei Wang & Yiting Zhan & Jingran Chen & Hsiao-Fen Hsiao, 2022. "A Study of Total-Factor Energy Efficiency for Regional Sustainable Development in China: An Application of Bootstrapped DEA and Clustering Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-13, April.
    8. Thomas Wiedmann & John Barrett, 2010. "A Review of the Ecological Footprint Indicator—Perceptions and Methods," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(6), pages 1-49, June.
    9. Eva Richterová & Martin Richter & Zlata Sojková, 2021. "Regional eco-efficiency of the agricultural sector in V4 regions, its dynamics in time and decomposition on the technological and pure technical eco-efficiency change," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 16(3), pages 553-576, September.
    10. Nan Li & Tianzhu Zhang & Jianchuan Qi & Yuanyi Huang, 2015. "Using Multiple Tools to Analyze Resource Exchange in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-14, September.
    11. Paul Welfens & Christian Lutz, 2012. "Green ICT dynamics: key issues and findings for Germany," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 24(2), pages 155-163, June.
    12. Pyoungsoo Lee, 2022. "Ranking Decision Making for Eco-Efficiency Using Operational, Energy, and Environmental Efficiency," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-18, March.
    13. Sgouris Sgouridis & Denes Csala, 2014. "A Framework for Defining Sustainable Energy Transitions: Principles, Dynamics, and Implications," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(5), pages 1-22, May.
    14. Hanspeter Wieland & Stefan Giljum & Nina Eisenmenger & Dominik Wiedenhofer & Martin Bruckner & Anke Schaffartzik & Anne Owen, 2020. "Supply versus use designs of environmental extensions in input–output analysis: Conceptual and empirical implications for the case of energy," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 24(3), pages 548-563, June.
    15. Jiliang Zheng & Xiaoting Peng, 2019. "Does an Ecological Industry Chain Improve the Eco-Efficiency of an Industrial Cluster? Based on Empirical Study of an Energy-Intensive Industrial Cluster in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-18, March.
    16. Kounetas, Konstantinos & Stergiou, Eirini, 2019. "Examining eco-efficiency convergence of European Industries.The existence of technological spillovers within a metafrontier framework," MPRA Paper 94286, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Kytzia, Susanne & Walz, Ariane & Wegmann, Mattia, 2011. "How can tourism use land more efficiently? A model-based approach to land-use efficiency for tourist destinations," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 629-640.
    18. R. Bleischwitz & P. Welfens & Z. Zhang, 2012. "Prologue to the special issue “Resources, energy and eco-innovation” in Mineral Economics," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 24(2), pages 55-57, June.
    19. Liz Wachs & Shweta Singh, 2018. "A modular bottom-up approach for constructing physical input–output tables (PIOTs) based on process engineering models," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 7(1), pages 1-24, December.
    20. Pyoungsoo Lee & You-Jin Park, 2017. "Eco-Efficiency Evaluation Considering Environmental Stringency," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-18, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:2:p:542-:d:132374. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.