A summary of ISEW and GPI studies at multiple scales and new estimates for Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and the State of Maryland

This paper (1) summarizes a number of previous Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) and Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) studies at various scales; (2) estimates the GPI for Baltimore, Baltimore County, and the State of Maryland; and (3) compares these results with previous and parallel studies. GPI incorporates environmental, social, and economic information into a single metric to represent economic well-being. At all three scales, GPI was found to grow at a slower rate than the conventional economic measure of gross domestic product (GDP), while at the US national scale GPI has been relatively flat since 1975. State-level results match an independently calculated Maryland GPI, confirming that GPI methods are robust and reproducible. In addition, the State of Maryland has recently made GPI one of their official State statistics, reported annually. State-level GPI results were also compared with studies for the states of Ohio and Vermont to explore regional differences. We recommend that the GPI research community develop consensus on a standardized measurement approach and seek common ground for advancing the use of improved indicators and accounting systems in official policy settings.     

Wealth Accounting,Exhaustible Resources and Social Welfare

The empirical literature on natural resource accounting uses methods which implicitly or explicitly entail measuring changes in total resource asset value when an exhaustible resource is depleted. In contrast, the growth theoretic literature on saving, social welfare and sustainable development is built upon a central finding, that the change in real wealth (as measured by net or ‘genuine’ saving) is proportional to the change in social welfare. We show that the change in total wealth exceeds the change in real wealth in optimal and non-optimal models of resource-extracting economies. This suggests that the change in social welfare is over-estimated when the change in total resource asset value is used as the measure of depletion. A simple empirical exercise, using World Bank data on ‘adjusted net saving’, reinforces the results from theory.     

Linking material and energy flow analyses and social theory

The paper explores the potential of Habermas' theory of communicative action to alter the social reflexivity of material and energy flow analysis. With his social macro theory Habermas has provided an alternative, critical justification for social theory that can be distinguished from economic libertarianism and from political liberalism. Implicitly, most flow approaches draw from these theoretical traditions rather than from discourse theory. There are several types of material and energy flow analyses. While these concepts basically share a system theoretical view, they lack a specific interdisciplinary perspective that ties the fundamental insight of flows to disciplinary scientific development. Instead of simply expanding micro-models to the social macro-dimension social theory suggests infusing the very notion of flows to the progress of disciplines. With regard to the functional integration of society, material and energy flow analyses can rely on the paradigm of ecological economics and at the same time progress the debate between strong and weak sustainability within the paradigm. However, placing economics at the centre of their functional analyses may still ignore the broader social integration of society, depending on their pre-analytic outline of research and the methods used.     

Sustainability of nations by indices: Comparative study between environmental sustainability index, ecological footprint and the emergy performance indices

The present work makes a comparison between the two most used environmental sustainability indices of nations: “ecological footprint” and “environmental sustainability index”, with two emergy ratios (renewability and emergy sustainability index). All of them are gaining space within the scientific community and government officials. Despite the efforts for obtaining an index that adequately represents the sustainability of a region, according to the result of this research, nowadays there is not yet a completely satisfactory index. We consider that all of them need to be improved, but the results point out the possibility of obtaining one better index of sustainability through the junction of ecological footprint with renewability emergy index.     

SEEA-2003: Accounting for sustainable development?

The revised SEEA-2003 elaborates physical and hybrid environmental-economic accounts, details valuation techniques for natural resources, but rejects monetary valuation of environmental degradation as “modeling”. Preference for physical accounting and corresponding loss of systemic coherence (as compared to the SEEA-1993) prevents meeting the proclaimed objective of assessing sustainable development.     

Towards a global multi-regional environmentally extended input-output database

This paper presents the strategy for a large EU-funded Integrated Project: EXIOPOL (“A New Environmental Accounting Framework Using Externality Data and Input-Output Tools for Policy Analysis”), with special attention for its part in environmentally extended (EE) input-output (IO) analysis. The project has three principal objectives:

(a)

to synthesize and further develop estimates of the external costs of key environmental impacts for Europe;

(b)

to develop an EE IO framework for the EU-27 in a global context, including as many of these estimates as possible, to allow for the estimation of environmental impacts (expressed as LCA themes, material requirement indicators, ecological footprints or external costs) of the activities of different economic sectors, final consumption activities and resource consumption;

(c)

to apply the results of the work to external costs and EE I-O for illustrative policy questions.

     

适应可持续发展战略要求,建立综合环境─经济核算体系

可持续发展是环境与经济发展的有机统一体,它要求一个与之相适应的核算体系。现行的国民经济核算体系,由于其固有的缺陷,不能完成这一任务。1993年联合国出版的《综合环境与经济核算手册》（即SEEA）提供了环境与经济核算相结合的核算体系,可供借鉴。     

A research of material input and environmental impact for Chinese economy： 1990-2005

The process of economic activities is on the basis of tremendous material inputs. China has been discharging an enormous amount of waste, giving rise to a wide range of environmental impacts. The method of economy-wide material flow analysis （EW-MFA） is one of the effective tools to examine the flow of materials entering physical economies, and recognize early environmental problems. Relevant researches are still at the early stage in China and most focus on material throughput but are rarely concerned about the utilization of recycling resource and environmental impact. Based on more than 3,000 items of data related, materials entering Chinese economy are classified into three types, and then the characteristics of material input and environmental impact are presented for the years 1990-2005 by using the indicators derived from EW-MFA. The Ratio of Recycled Material （RRM） is added as the new indicator in order to be in accordance with the need of circular economy being promoted in China. Results show that the great changes in the structure of material input cause the continuous increase of industrial solid waste emissions and the bogging down of material productivity. The RRM reveals that the utilization of recycling resources remains at a fairly low level in China. Finally, some weakness of EW-MFA is discussed according to the calculated results.     

试论森林环境资源核算

环境资源核算是当前国际社会最关注的热门课题之一,作者指出了现行国民经济核算体系的缺陷,论述了世界环境资源核算的研究现状及发展前景,重点介绍了环境资源核算研究的指导思想、环境资源核算的新概念及其分类、价值和计算方法、环境产业问题等,并对我国开展森林环境资源核算研究提出了几点建议。     

MFA model to assess economic and environmental consequences of food production and consumption

Agri-food sector is a crucially important part of the society, because it is a major factor affecting public health and welfare and it also contributes – directly and indirectly – both to the environment and to the national gross product and employment. Improving sustainability of the agri-food sector implies production of nutritionally better food by using fewer inputs and by reducing environmental burden.In reducing environmental burden, it is essential to restrict the material throughput, to identify the hot spots and direct the measures to them. Improving performance of the food sector requires that the benefits and inputs be quantified in an unambiguous way and that the inputs are estimated for the whole production chain. A comprehensive view of the whole system is necessary.Here, the material flow approach (MFA) has been used to describe the Finnish food flux. The quantitative numerical data have been derived from the farm models' data base, and the data have been adjusted so as to comply with the production and consumption statistics of Finland. Using the compiled data an extended input–output model has been constructed. The model allows for the evaluation of some of the economic and environmental consequences, when the structure of food production and the patterns of food consumption are changed. The consequences can be traced within agriculture, within the food sector as a whole, or at the level of the nation-wide economy. In combination with other information the model, thus, serves as a practical tool for planning.The paper at hand gives an overview of the data base and the basic calculation principles of the model. The usability of the model is demonstrated with results from modelling examples, in which the share of organic production or the share of vegetarian food in the average Finnish diet has been increased. The possibilities and restrictions of the approach as well as some of the needs for further development are discussed.The study is the first step in developing MFA methods to analyse and to monitor the material flows of the Finnish food flux. The results have been used also in compiling the Finnish physical input–output tables. The study, thus, contributes to the overall development of the materials flow accounting.