Environmental footprints

Direct input-output coefficients reflect the effects of the delivery of goods and services in terms of produced and non-produced inputs and environmental impacts (emissions). Evaluation of the further effects of the produced inputs yields the total input-output coefficients, which thus incorporate the multiplier effects of the final delivery of goods and services. The most concrete examples of these are footprints, which trace the environmental impacts of final consumption through the direct and indirect production requirements. After presenting a short history of environmental accounting in input-output analysis, this chapter discusses five types of footprints: ecological, carbon, material, water and land footprints. The methodology of footprint analysis is Leontief inversion of the matrix of input-output coefficients, where products are differentiated by their locations. The dimension of such a matrix is the number of products times the number of regions and this analysis is called multiregional input-output analysis. Multiregional input-output analysis traces the indirect requirements of final consumption in terms of national and international outputs. Application of environmental pressure coefficients yields the footprints. This combination of multiregional input-output and environmental analyses is also called life-cycle assessment and accounts for the environmental impacts embodied in trade.