Joy Murray

THE ROLE OF INPUT-OUTPUT ANALYSIS FOR THE SCREENING OF CORPORATE CARBON FOOTPRINTS

In developing a standardised approach for companies to inventory greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions along their value chains, key challenges identified by stakeholders and technical experts include: which emissions sources a company should include in their inventory and how to calculate them, what constitutes a full list of indirect supply chain activities, and how to determine which activities from such a list are significant by application of a cut-off threshold. Using GHG accounting based on input–output models from Australia and the United States, this work presents specific case study examples and general results for broad industry sectors in both economies to address the development of a complete upstream carbon footprint for screening purposes. This is followed by an analysis of the issues surrounding application of cut-off thresholds and the relationship with system capture rate and efforts in carbon footprint analysis. This knowledge can inform decision makers about where to expend effort in gaining progressively greater accuracy for informed purchasing, investing, claiming carbon credits, and policy-making. The results from this work elucidate several findings: while it is probably true that some companies will know what sources contribute most significantly in the supply chain, this is not likely to be true for all. Contrary to common perception, scope 1&2 emissions are not always more significant than scope-3 sources, and, for some sectors, the largest sources of emissions may be buried further upstream than many companies may have previously perceived. Compiling a list of core elements of significance across all sectors may be problematic because these elements are not necessarily significant for most sectors. Lastly, the application of cut-off thresholds results in highly variable performance in footprint capture rate and is not a reliable criterion for including emission sources in GHG footprints. Input–output analysis is a powerful tool in informing supply-chain GHG accounting, and there is a need for plain language education, training, support materials and information to be made easily accessible to a global business community.

Compiling and using input–output frameworks through collaborative virtual laboratories

Compiling, deploying and utilising large-scale databases that integrate environmental and economic data have traditionally been labour- and cost-intensive processes, hindered by the large amount of disparate and misaligned data that must be collected and harmonised. The Australian Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory (IELab) is a novel, collaborative approach to compiling large-scale environmentally extended multi-region input-output (MRIO) models. The utility of the IELab product is greatly enhanced by avoiding the need to lock in an MRIO structure at the time the MRIO system is developed. The IELab advances the idea of the mother-daughter construction principle, whereby a regionally and sectorally very detailed mother table is set up, from which daughter tables are derived to suit specific research questions. By introducing a third tier - the root classification - IELab users are able to define their own mother-MRIO configuration, at no additional cost in terms of data handling. Customised mother-MRIOs can then be built, which maximise disaggregation in aspects that are useful to a family of research questions. The second innovation in the IELab system is to provide a highly automated collaborative research platform in a cloud-computing environment, greatly expediting workflows and making these computational benefits accessible to all users. Combining these two aspects realises many benefits. The collaborative nature of the IELab development project allows significant savings in resources. Timely deployment is possible by coupling automation procedures with the comprehensive input from multiple teams. User-defined MRIO tables, coupled with high performance computing, mean that MRIO analysis will be useful and accessible for a great many more research applications than would otherwise be possible. By ensuring that a common set of analytical tools such as for hybrid life-cycle assessment is adopted, the IELab will facilitate the harmonisation of fragmented, dispersed and misaligned raw data for the benefit of all interested parties.

The Employment Footprints of Nations

In this study, we present an analysis of the average wages paid for producing direct and indirect imports of nations using employment and income footprints. An employment footprint includes a countrys domestic employment and that occurring along the supply chains of, and hence embodied in, its imported goods and services. Our results allow us to group the worlds nations into “masters” that enjoy a lifestyle supported by workers in other countries and “servants” that support the lifestyle of master countries. We show that, in 2010, employment footprints of countries differed substantially from their own workforce footprints. Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Switzerland occupy the top‐ranking positions of master countries, whereas many African and Asian countries are servants. Our findings show that the commodities that are “servant intensive,” such as electronics, agricultural products, and chemicals, tend to have complex supply chains often originating in third‐world countries. The quantification of these master‐servant relationships and the exposing of implicated supply chains could be of benefit to those concerned with their corporate social responsibility and committed to fairer trading or those developing policy around fair globalization.

The Wider Social Benefits of Higher Education: What do we Know about Them?

There has recently been a shift towards private expenditure in the tertiary education sector accompanied by a shift of public subsidies to students themselves. Implicit in this shift is the message that tertiary education is a private rather than public good, belonging to individual students rather than society. This paper explores the research on the wider social benefits of higher education and the data and methodologies that exist to underpin it. Its focus is on benefits to society but, since individual social benefits are entangled with wider benefits, both are discussed. The paper finds that little research has been undertaken in Australia even though understanding the wider social benefits of higher education is considered important to policy development. Longitudinal survey data do exist that could be extended and harnessed for such research.

The inequality footprints of nations: a novel approach to quantitative accounting of income inequality.

In this study we use economic input-output analysis to calculate the inequality footprint of nations. An inequality footprint shows the link that each countrys domestic economic activity has to income distribution elsewhere in the world. To this end we use employment and household income accounts for 187 countries and an historical time series dating back to 1990. Our results show that in 2010, most developed countries had an inequality footprint that was higher than their within-country inequality, meaning that in order to support domestic lifestyles, these countries source imports from more unequal economies. Amongst exceptions are the United States and United Kingdom, which placed them on a par with many developing countries. Russia has a high within-country inequality nevertheless it has the lowest inequality footprint in the world, which is because of its trade connections with the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe. Our findings show that the commodities that are inequality-intensive, such as electronic components, chemicals, fertilizers, minerals, and agricultural products often originate in developing countries characterized by high levels of inequality. Consumption of these commodities may implicate within-country inequality in both developing and developed countries.

A Personal Approach to Teaching about Climate Change

The problem of climate change is complex, global, and long-term, and therefore difficult to grapple with for politicians, scientists, teachers, and students alike. Teachers in particular face the problem of presenting climate change in a way that is not abstract and distant. To engage the intellect as well as emotions, students need to feel personally involved. One way to achieve this personal involvement is to link climate change to students individual lives. Such a relationship can be created using a personal greenhouse gas budget, comprising ail emissions caused by a student over one year. A personal greenhouse gas calculator was developed at the School of Physics, University of Sydney, in the form of a computer spreadsheet, and applied in university teaching. This calculator does not only address emissions from energy use, but also those emissions embodied in goods and services. Embodied emissions are often ignored when climate change is related to lifestyles, As its normative part, the calculator states a benchmark of 3.5 t CO 2 per person per year, based on the principle of global equity and sustainability. First experiences show that most students agree with that benchmark, and accept responsibility for embodied emissions. However, their own emissions results exceed by far the equitable and sustainable budget. This experience triggers various feelings, ranging from surprise and motivation, to guilt, denial, self-defence, cynicism, anger, and frustration. In contrast to a model where teaching is seen as transmission of information, this personal and provocative approach creates an emotional response, which affects memory, which in turn holds out the promise of long-term change.

Structural change and the environment : a case study of China's production recipe and carbon dioxide emissions

We use the input‐output tables in constant prices extended with carbon dioxide (CO) emissions for examining the development of China, a country undergoing rapid growth. We undertake this empirical analysis in terms of a new and therefore rarely applied methodology: instead of average coefficients characterizing the average (old) technology operating throughout a particular reporting year, we calculate marginal coefficients -- in monetary and CO terms -- that capture the additional (new) technology installed after that year. Marginal coefficients are increasingly recommended in the literature for applications such as consequential life cycle assessment, where they are supposed to lead to more realistic results, especially in prospective analyses. Our work provides a first, broad overview about the magnitude and distribution of these coefficients across recent years in Chinas rapidly growing economy for which marginal coefficients could be expected to differ greatly from average coefficients. We find that (1) marginal coefficients can differ substantially from average coefficients, thus lending support to the need expressed in the literature for coining consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) and similar prospective assessment in marginal rather than average terms; (2) marginal CO emissions coefficients differ more from their average counterparts than marginal monetary coefficients, showing that for China, within‐sector technological solutions to emissions abatement have played a more important role than the reorganization of supply structures; and (3) there exists considerable scatter and variation of marginal coefficients across years, which to a certain extent precludes the identification of clear temporal and sectoral trends.

The Corruption Footprints of Nations

Summary nIn this study, we innovatively apply multiregional input-output analysis to calculate corruption footprints of nations and show the details of commodities that use the most employment affected by corruption (EAC), as they flow between countries. Every countrys corruption footprint includes its domestic corruption and the corruption imported by global supply chains to meet final demand. Our results show that, generally, the net corruption exporters are developing countries, with the exception of Italy where corruption is likely to be more affected by political and cultural factors than economic factors. China is the largest gross corruption exporter, and India follows close behind, with clothing as one of the industries in which the most people are affected by corruption. This is because: (1) China and India are major clothing exporters, thus many workers are employed in the clothing industry within the country as well as in countries providing intermediate commodities by supply chains, and (2) corruption is high in China and India. Our results can be useful to identify where regulations to combat corruption can have the greatest impact. More important, the method we use can be applied to link corruption to other economic and social aspects of trade, such as working conditions, thus making it possible to find avenues for tackling the problem that are not usually considered in anticorruption strategies.

Cultural and socio-economic determinants of energy consumption on small remote islands

In this cross‐country analysis of four small and remote islands, we integrate multiple dimensions of socio‐economic demographic data, such as population, land area, remoteness, tourist arrivals and earnings, export earnings, financial support, average incomes, fuel and electricity prices, penetration of renewable energy sources, and motor vehicle usage; we compare these characteristics with per capita use of energy carriers such as electricity, petrol and diesel. From these characteristics, we identify key determinants of energy consumption in the islands. Whereas we focus on energy, our analysis also applies to emissions of carbon and energy‐related pollutants. Our results indicate that cultural and social contexts are at least as relevant for policymaking as economic and technological aspects. We suggest that in small island developing States there is scope for policymaking to at the same time: reduce economic vulnerability due to dependence on imported fossil fuels; reduce environmental impact; and progress sustainable development. Such progress can be implemented through peer‐to‐peer learning programmes facilitated by targeted international cooperation and partnerships.

Exporting water from the desert? An analysis of the virtual water content of Saudi Arabian agricultural exports

Abstract This study applies input-output analysis to evaluate and trace Saudi Arabia’s virtual water exports arising from exports of agricultural products. Saudi Arabia’s total virtual exports in 2011 were around 2.42 km3, mainly to neighbouring Arab countries. This amount is enough to meet the water demand of the country’s entire population. Agricultural exports seem economically beneficial only because they rely on groundwater; however, since the indirect cost of desalinating equivalent amounts of water for domestic purposes is much higher, a better strategy would have been to direct those water resources towards domestic needs.