Consumption-based indicators in Swedish environmental policy

Abstract

The generational goal, which sets the direction for Sweden's environmental policy, was reformulated and decided upon in 2010 by the Riksdag. The overall goal of Swedish environmental policy is to hand over to the next generation a society in which the major environmental problems in Sweden have been solved, without increasing environmental and health problems outside Sweden's borders. There are seven bullet points linked to the generational goal. The seventh emphasises that solving the environmental problems we face are to be achieved within one generation, ensuring that: Patterns of consumption of goods and services cause the least possible problems for the environment and human health. The changes from the previous generational goal imply among other things that environmental policy in Sweden must not lead to increased environmental and health problems outside of Sweden. This implies that we have to develop the possibility of following up Sweden's environmental impact in other countries. The environmental impact that Sweden causes in other countries is due among other things to the importing of products. It is therefore necessary to try to quantify the total environmental impact that the manufacturing of the imported products causes in order to gain an understanding of the environmental impact abroad. The purpose of this project is primarily to develop indicators for emissions of greenhouse gases and other emissions to air caused by Swedish consumption, in order to follow the negative environmental impact in other countries. The indicators are generally aimed at following the trend in emissions over time, not at examining exact emission levels. The purpose is also to further develop methods to follow the emissions of chemical substances caused by Swedish consumption. The idea here is to try out a data source for point sources of discharge of chemical substances, apply an input-output analysis to them and weigh together the substances to obtain potential toxicity, by life cycle assessment (LCA) methods. This is a first step and the method needs to be further developed before an indicator can be presented. The results of the project are presented in the following proposals for indicators to follow up the generational goal and its seventh bullet point: Climate related emissions:  Emissions of greenhouse gases abroad and in Sweden, measured in carbon dioxide equivalents caused by Swedish consumption, time series 2000-2008  Emissions of greenhouse gases per person abroad and in Sweden caused by Swedish consumption, measured in carbon dioxide equivalents, time series 2000-2008  Emissions of greenhouse gases caused by Swedish consumption abroad and in Sweden, indexed with the year 2000 = 100, time series 2000-2008 Other emissions to air:  Emissions of nitrogen oxides caused by Swedish consumption, abroad and in Sweden, time series 2000-2008  Emissions of sulphur dioxide caused by Swedish consumption abroad and in Sweden, time series 2000-2008  Emissions of ammonia caused by Swedish consumption abroad and in Sweden, time series 2000-2008 An example of how the indicators can be presented together with relevant issues is available in the report in Annex 5. Emissions of greenhouse gases caused by Swedish consumption, in Sweden and abroad The indicator for greenhouse gases emissions caused by Swedish consumption abroad and in Sweden is presented below. Greenhouse gases are measured in millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents, which is a weighted total of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (laughing gas) due to their impact on the greenhouse gas effect. The indicator shows the total greenhouse gas emissions caused by Swedish consumption, consisting of emissions in Sweden and emissions abroad. The total emissions caused by Swedish consumption increased from 90 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents in 2000 to 98 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents in 2008. This implies an increase of 9 percent during the period. The emissions abroad have increased from 44 million tonnes to 58 million tonnes, implying an increase of 30 percent between 2000 and 2008. In comparison, domestic emissions caused by Swedish consumption decreased from 46 million tonnes to 40 million tonnes during the same period, implying a decrease of about 13 percent. The exact levels depend on which data are available and model assumptions, and may vary between studies. The increase shown by the indicator of the total emissions is caused by an increase in emissions abroad and can be explained in the model by increased consumption met by increasing imports. The fact that the imports have increased by approximately 40 percent, in fixed prices, between 2000 and 2008, supports that explanation. An increase can also be the result if the composition of consumption changes, i.e. if other types of products are imported, product types that cause higher emissions, or if the production of imported goods takes place where higher emissions are caused in producing the same type of goods. Nearly half of the increase can be explained by the population growth during the period. To find out more about the driving forces behind the increased emissions, supplementary studies must be performed, which have not been carried out within this project. The indicator consists of two parts, emissions in Sweden and emissions abroad, both caused by Swedish consumption. The underlying data source for the emissions in Sweden is the official statistics on emissions reported to UNFCCC, the UN's climate change convention. These emissions are broken down by industry and processed by Environmental Accounts at Statistics Sweden and used in an environmentally extended input-output analysis (Naturvårdsverket, 2010d). The main difference between the domestic emissions caused by Swedish consumption and the domestic emissions reported to UNFCCC is that emissions caused in producing goods for export are not a part of the emissions caused by consumption. Emissions due to imported goods that are produced in other countries are estimated according to a model. The model for carbon dioxide emissions is based on how much - in economic terms - is imported from other countries (data from Statistics Sweden), emissions of carbon dioxide reported to Eurostat for EU countries and each country's emissions intensity in relation to GDP (data from World Resources Institute) for countries outside the EU. Emissions of methane and nitrous oxide in other countries are calculated as if they occurred in Sweden. Use of chemicals and emissions of chemical substances The project included further development of methods for a future indicator of the area of chemicals from a perspective of consumption. In previous work, data from the products register at the Swedish Chemicals Agency have been used to create indicators for use of chemicals in Sweden for this purpose. In this project the options for developing other indicators as a complement are investigated, where an important prerequisite is data availability abroad. The focus was to develop the idea which was presented in the background synthesis report (Naturvårdsverket, 2010d). The idea is to try to use the database EPRTR1 which contains national emissions of chemical substances from industrial point sources, reported to the EU. Input-output analyses could be applied to these data, to obtain emissions caused by final demand. The emitted chemical substances were weighted using LCA methods to enable potential toxicity to be presented for aquatic ecotoxicity and human toxicity. The results which are presented in the report show contribution to potential toxicity caused by final demand in Sweden in 2008, based on reported emissions in E-PRTR. Substances that contributed most to potential toxicity could also be distinguished. In the study using E-PRTR as a data source, several limitations should be mentioned which contribute to the fact that no ready-to-use indicator for chemical substances is presented in the report. The emissions are presented for the whole of final demand including exports. Of this followed that the large export products (basic metals, pulp and paper) contributed heavily to the results. The analysis was restricted to domestic emissions, which means that no calculations on the contribution to potential toxicity for imported goods were performed. Another restriction worth noting is that the contents of the data source are limited to those substances that are reportable and that the result depends on which substances are included in the calculation model that is used when the potential toxicity is determined. Continued work The work to produce indicators for follow up of the global environmental impact caused by consumption has made some progress through this project. During the project many development areas for methods and data sources have been identified. No development projects have been decided upon, and a decision on estimation of costs must be evaluated first. For climate related emissions there are the following suggestions for development:  Add emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases by industry to the environmentally extended input-output analyses.  Develop emission intensities based on data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and World Bank to obtain more detailed and updated intensities than those published by World Resources Institute (WRI).  Study to what extent the increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions are due to higher imports or higher emissions intensities.  Study which countries Sweden imports from, and analyse if this has changed over time and has had any impact on emission levels.  Further enhance the allocation of emissions of methane and nitrous oxide related to the production of food products, so that meat can be separately studied and to enhance the calculation of emissions in other countries. For emissions to air there are the following suggestions for development:  Use Eurostat data for the emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ammonia to obtain a better understanding of emissions in other countries. The results in this report are based on the "as if" assumption.  Study the following emissions to air in a consumption perspective: carbon dioxide, volatile aromatic compounds and particulates, to obtain a better understanding about how these can be followed in other countries. For the area of chemicals, there is no indicator ready to use. A possible way forward is to develop an indicator based on E-PRTR and relate it to other sources of emissions. The following indicates development areas in order to connect emissions of chemical substances to consumption:  Allocate the emissions from industrial point sources reported to E-PRTR to the components of final demand so that the emissions linked to exports can be excluded in further analyses.  Try to obtain an understanding of the size of the total industrial emissions that are covered through E-PRTR (the database EU countries report their national PRTR data to)  Estimate emissions in other countries, related to Sweden's imports, by using available data sources (available for the EU and several other countries).  Quantify and estimate the potential toxicity from diffuse emissions from the use of chemical products and from goods, for comparison with the potential toxicity from those emissions that are reported in E-PRTR.