Assessment of Sustainable Consumption Patterns based on Environmental Impact Linkage Analysis
Date Issued
2008
Date
2008
Author(s)
Wang, Chun-Chieh
Abstract
The traditional environmental load assessment mainly aimed at the pipe-end of industrial process, and accused the producer should take environmental responsibility solely. But the increasing production is driven by the growing demand, it seems unreasonable to exclude the role of consumer, when we seeking the suitable pathway toward sustainable development. Although the material depletion and environmental quality degradation caused by the massive and irresponsible are gradually acknowledged by public in Taiwan, there is still lacking a systematic quantitative tool to explore the whole impact hidden behind daily behavior. Therefore, the “Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment” is applied to estimate the direct and indirect environment load induce by consumption and production pattern in Taiwan, thus the “Only the Stacks Pollute”principle can be re-examined.rom environmental impact linkage analysis, the contribution of industries production among the overall environment impact can be discussed. By evaluating environmental load in all kinds of demand, the proportion of total household consumption in Taiwan is about 20.52%~34.59% in various environmental impact categories and export part is about 43.57%~65.91%. The main environmental impact is due to the reason of producing for export. However the environmental load of import is about 47.36%~93.16%, which means the “Taiwan Consumption, Other countries emission” phenomena does exist, and should not be ignored.hen comes to the sustainable consumption part, although there is only a small portion of total household expenditure spent in manufacturing industries, but massive environmental load hidden behind those consumption behavior. However, the portion of expenditure spent in service industries and the environmental load are proportional. In the other aspect, electricity using of household and service industries, oil consuming and air pollution emission of transportation are the main factors for environmental impact.omparing the environmental impact induced by the industrial activities and household consumption among the all counties in Taiwan, there are seven cities causing above average environmental impact owing to over- consumption, especially Hsin-Chu city and Taipei city. Moreover, the environmental impact caused by consumption are much larger than the industrial activity in Taipei city and Tainan city. Those evaluation indicate that the inner environmental inequity should be a issue to deal with by the government.ombining the uncertainty analysis and sensitivity analysis of different consumption scenario, the total household expenditure spent is the most determining factor of environmental impact. The other determining factor includes the demand of electricity, agricultural production, and transportation. This result can offer a direction to prioritize the sustainable consumption strategies.
Subjects
Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment
Forward and Backward Linkage
Life Cycle Impact Assessment
Environment equity
household expenditure
import and export
over-consumption
Type
thesis
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