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Technical documentation for an experimental statistic estimating the global environmental impacts of UK consumption 2021

Freshwater Marine Terrestrial JNCC Publications 0963-8091 UK 695 Environmental accounting

Abstract

The Outcome Indicator Framework for the UK Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan calls for the development of an indicator to measure the “overseas environmental impacts of UK consumption of key commodities.” This report describes the methodologies used to produce an experimental statistic (UK Biodiversity Indicator A4) that is planned to be fed into Outcome Indicator Reporting for 2022 as indicator K1.

This includes:

  • An overview of the modelling framework, which is based on hybrid multi-regional input-output modelling using data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and Exiobase, which are combined within the Stockholm Environment Institute’s IOTA (Input-Output Trade Analysis) framework.

  • An explanation of the treatment of commodities that differed in methods and data from the other commodities analysed, namely cattle and timber.

  • An explanation of the data sources used for each impact metric type, how they were integrated into the modelling, and any known data update plans.

Accompanying the report are three files containing the data behind the indicator:

  • Producing-country-results: results showing the total estimate for each impact type associated with UK consumption, broken down by the producing country in which the impact took place (but aggregated across all commodities produced within that country) for each year.

  • Commodity-results: results showing the total estimate for each impact type associated with UK consumption, broken down by the commodity responsible for the impact (but aggregated across producing countries from which the commodities came) for each year.

  • UK-results-disaggregated: results showing the estimate for each impact type associated with UK consumption for each commodity in each country of production.

A Datasheet containing the total estimate for each impact type associated with all UK consumption (of all commodities and from all countries combined) is available as a separate resource. Additional datasheets, including those relevant to other consuming countries assessed, can be downloaded from the associated dashboard.

These resources may not be fully accessible for all users. If you need a copy of any of these resources in a different or more accessible format, please get in touch.

Resource type Publication

Topic category Environment

Reference date 2021·10·28

Citation
Croft, S., West, C., Harris, M., Green, J., Molotoks, A., Harris, V. & Way, L. 2021. Technical documentation for an experimental statistic estimating the global environmental impacts of UK consumption. JNCC Report No. 695, JNCC, Peterborough, ISSN 0963-8091.

Lineage
This project was funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Responsible organisation
Communications, JNCC publisher

Limitations on public access No limitations

Use constraints Available under the Open Government Licence 3.0

Metadata date 2021·10·29

Metadata point of contact
Communications, JNCC

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