Environmental impacts of European trade: interpreting results of process-based LCA and environmentally extended input–output analysis towards hotspot identification

Purpose. Trade is increasingly considered a significant contributor to environmental impacts. The assessment of the impacts is usually performed via Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis (EEIOA). However, process-based Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) applied to traded goods allows increasing the granularity of the analysis and may be essential to unveil impacts associated with traded products. Methods. This study assesses the environmental impacts of EU trade, considering two modelling approaches: respectively EEIOA, using EXIOBASE 3 as supporting database, and process-based LCA. The interpretation of the results is pivotal to improve the robustness of the assessment and the identification of hotspots. The hotspots identification focuses on temporal trends and on the contribution of products and substances to the overall impact. The inventories of elementary flows associated with EU trade, for the period 2000-2010, have been characterized considering 14 impact categories according to the Environmental Footprint (EF2017) Life Cycle Impact Assessment method. Results and discussion. The two modelling approaches converge in highlighting that in the period 2000-2010: i) EU was a “net importer of environmental impacts”, ii) impacts of EU trade and EU trade balance (impacts of imports minus impacts of exports) were increasingover time, regarding most impact categories under study; and iii) similar manufactured products were the main contributors to the impacts of exports from EU, regarding most impact categories. However, some results are discrepant: i) larger impacts are obtained from IO Analysis than from process-based LCA, regarding most impact categories, ii) a different set of most contributing products is identified by the two approaches in the case of imports, and iii) large differences in the contributions of substances are observed regarding resource use, toxicity and ecotoxicity indicators. Conclusions. The interpretation step is crucial to unveil the main hotspots, encompassing a comparison of the differences between the two methodologies, the assumptions, the data coverage and sources, the completeness of inventory as basis for impact assessment. The main driver for the observed divergences is identified to be the differences in the impact intensities of goods, both induced by inherent properties of the IO and Life Cycle Inventory databases and by some of this study’s modelling choices. The combination of IO Analysis and process-based LCA in a hybrid framework, as performed in other studies but generally not at the macro-scale of the full trade of a country or region, appears a potential important perspective to refine such an assessment in the future.

BEYLOT Antoine;  CORRADO Sara;  SALA Serenella; 

2021-01-13

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG

JRC115258

0948-3349 (online),   

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-019-01649-z,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC115258,   

10.1007/s11367-019-01649-z (online),