The Environmental Impact of Human Needs

摘要: What do we need to live a decent life? This fundamental question has been the motor behind numerous studies and policies that play a central role in the development narrative. Currently, we face the pressing challenge of transforming our socio-economic system into one that can satisfy human needs without compromising natural resources and services. Surprisingly, so far environmental accounting ponders on the environmental burden of products but lacks the connection to the actual needs that are being satisfied through market consumption. Here we present a novel attempt to close that gap. We connect the human needs framework by Max-Neef (Max-Neef et al, 1991) with the consumption-based accounting of Environmental Extended Multi-Regional Input Output analysis (EE MRIO). Thus, we calculate the environmental footprints of satisfying human needs across nations. Furthermore, we are able to visualize a correspondence between the different industrial sectors and the different needs they fulfil in terms of the satisfiers that they provide.We base the calculation on the data provided by the recently updated EE MRIO †œEXIOBASE 2―(Wood et al, 2014). This EE MRIO exhibits a consistent sector classification of 163 industries/200 products with more than 300 environmental satellite accounts for the base year 2007. This unique level of detail provides the necessary background information to investigate the impacts of satisfiers produced in a globalized economy with multiple environmental impacts. We calculate the environmental footprint of the satisfaction of human needs for the carbon, land, water and material perspective of EU …