Resumen de Multiregional sustainability at a sectoral level: towards more effective environmental regulations
Patricia Zurano Cervelló
In today’s globalized market, where international trade plays a major role, assessing the environmental footprint of anthropogenic activities and allocating the corresponding environmental responsibilities among the parties involved have become very challenging tasks. Anthropogenic activities involve a plethora of interconnected economic transactions among sectors and regions that mask the ultimate impact sources in the life cycle of a product. To solve this problem, substantial research has been aimed at understanding how anthropogenic activities affect the environment from a macroeconomic viewpoint.
In this regard, the environmental footprint assessment is key to identifying the ultimate sources of impact and formulate effective regulations at a sectoral level to mitigate them. Apart from the environmental footprint, there are other aspects also involved in the sustainability evaluation of each economic sector. These aspects belong to the economic and social categories that, together with the environmental one, make up the three main pillars of sustainability.
This thesis is dedicated to the development of tools to assist policy makers in the creation of effective regulations in an efficient and methodical way. To this end, we propose a two stage approach. In the first stage, it is necessary to identify the sectors and burdens that require regulation. Once the inefficient sectors have been pointed out, in a second stage, they are analyzed in detail to provide specific guidelines on how to achieve the targets set in stage one.
This thesis is organized into four main sections. In section 1, we present the introduction, where we establish the background of the methods and data used in this work, as well as the literature gaps on which we rely to base our studies. Section 2 is based on the first work, where we study the eco-efficiency of the EU manufacturing sectors by combining MREEIO tables with the DEA method, following the production and consumption-based approaches. This allows us to identify the sectors requiring regulations in specific burdens. Then, in section 3, we determine the sustainability efficiency of the EU electricity mixes by analyzing the social, economic and environmental features of each portfolio using the DEA method. In a second stage, we use a tailored mathematical model named EffMixF to obtain new electricity mixes for the countries found inefficient. These new mixes can be used as roadmap to devise specific regulations for the sector, indicating which technologies should be boosted and which hindered in each inefficient country. Finally, in section 4, we determine the key driving factors of the environmental impact on a global scale. For this, we first compare two decomposition techniques -the SDA and the Shapley-Sun methods-, establishing their similarities and introducing a simplified general equation that can be used in substitution of both methods. Then, we apply these methods in a case study, where we consider a selection of environmental impacts in a 15-year period, to determine the usefulness of the decomposition methods.
Summarizing the conclusions obtained in this thesis, the work presented in section 2 provides valuable insight into how impacts and wealth are generated at the sectoral level in an economy. The information obtained could be used to develop more effective environmental regulations and investment plans in the transition towards a more sustainable economy. The work in section 3 provides valuable insight into how the electricity portfolios should change in order to improve the nation’s sustainability level. Hence, the mathematical program we posed and solved, EffMixF, could be a useful tool to aid policy makers in the development of more effective regulations. Specifically, EffMixF identifies which technologies should be promoted, or hindered, via tailored policies. Finally, from section 4 we conclude that the n! SDA decomposition equations and the Shapley-Sun method are indeed the same approach in mathematical terms. We have formulated a simpler general equation that can be used in substitution of both equations.
