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Environmental Load from Dutch Private Consumption: How Much Damage Takes Place Abroad?
Author(s) -
Nijdam Durk S.,
Wilting Harry C.,
Goedkoop Mark J.,
Madsen Jacob
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of industrial ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.377
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1530-9290
pISSN - 1088-1980
DOI - 10.1162/1088198054084725
Subject(s) - consumption (sociology) , production (economics) , greenhouse gas , natural resource economics , economics , private consumption , agricultural economics , industrial ecology , environmental impact assessment , consumer expenditure survey , business , environmental protection , environmental science , public economics , sustainability , ecology , microeconomics , macroeconomics , social science , aggregate expenditure , sociology , fiscal policy , biology
Summary This article describes a method for determining the environmental load of Dutch private consumption. The method generates detailed information about consumption‐related environmental impacts. The environmental load of households (direct) and production (indirect) was determined for 360 expenditure categories reported in the Dutch Expenditure Survey. The indirect environmental load was calculated with linked input‐output tables covering worldwide production and trade. The environmental load per Euro turnover of industries was linked to consumer expenditures. With this method we can quantify several types of environmental load per expenditure category and per economic production region. It was found that food production, room heating, and car use are the most important elements in the environmental load of Dutch private consumption. The impacts taking place abroad were—with the exception of emission of greenhouse gases and road traffic noise—found to be larger than domestic impacts. Most land use was found to take place in developing (non‐OECD) countries, whereas most emissions occur in industrialized (OECD) countries.