An Integrated Model for Evaluating Environmental Impact of Consumer’s Behavior: Consumption ‘Technologies’ and the Waste Input-Output Model

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a new integrated analytical model for evaluating environmental loads induced by consumer behavior. The model consists of two components: One is the waste input-output (WIO) model that is a consistent framework for the hybrid life-cycle assessment and life-cycle costing. The other is an economics model of consumer behavior within the constraints of limited income and time based on the concept of consumption 'technologies.' Because consumers are regarded as industrial sectors in the newly developed model, not only time and income rebound effects but also a part of the so-called economy-wide rebound effects is accounted for.

The rebound effect through industrial ecology’s eyes: a review of LCA-based studies

“…The authors used CO 2 emissions and landfilled waste as indicators, being the first study providing estimates of the rebound effect through multiple indicators. Later on, the WIO model was refined by introducing a component to model consumer behaviour, in which both income and time aspects were considered (Kondo and Takase 2007;Takase et al 2006). To model consumption behaviour, the concept of "consumption technologies" was introduced (Becker 1965), through which "given prices, income, and time, a consumer is assumed to choose a set of activity levels of various consumption 'technologies' to maximise her/his utility" (Kondo and Takase 2007:3).…”

“…Because of this, the authors claimed that the model permits to partly account for the structural rebound effect. The work by Kondo and Takase (2007) was the first attempt to model structural effects through an LCA-based approach. Another approach to assess structural effects using LCA data can be found in the work of Rajagopal et al (2011), which used a partial equilibrium model to calculate the rebound effect from the introduction of biofuels in the USA.…”

“…The linkage can be in the form of connected models (softlinking) or through a unique model (hardlinking) Briceno et al (2004) The use of hybrid LCA increases the technology explicitness when modelling the indirect price environmental rebound effect. The results in the form of end point environmental impact indicators provide deeper insights for environmental assessment Takase et al (2005) Describing the environmental rebound effect in the form of multiple environmental indicators permits to assess trade-offs between indicators Kondo and Takase (2007) By combining hybrid LCA with price modelling, structural effects can be appraised while maintaining the technology detail of LCA Sandén and Karlstrom (2007) Transformational effects can be appraised by combining LCA with theories of technical change Binswanger (2001) or Jalas ( 2002)) using LCA data. The general guidelines provided by Hofstetter and Madjar (2003) to calculate a time rebound effect were later further developed into a general method by Spielmann et al (2008), which they then applied in a case study on the hypothetical construction of a highspeed train in Switzerland.…”

“…As our review points out, some of the researchers that have actively contributed to this line of thought are from the industrial ecology and the LCA communities. Within the latter, the search towards a broader concept of the functional unit to assess sustainability issues led some authors, such as Goedkoop (1999), Kondo and Takase (2007) and Hofstetter and Madjar (2003), to meaningfully contribute to this debate.…”

Responsibility for Regional Waste Generation: A Single-Region Extended Input–Output Analysis for Wales

“…For example, NAKAMURA and KONDO (2009) detail a waste input-output (WIO) framework, which first appears in NAKAMURA (1999) and is applied to the Japanese economy and waste cycles. This WIO framework forms the basis for many different types of analyses: see NAKAMURA and KONDO (2002) for an analysis of different waste management methods and strategies; TAKASE et al (2005) and KONDO and TAKASE (2007) for analyses related to sustainable consumption; and TSUKUI (2007) for an analysis of waste emissions. There have also been numerous contributions linking the WIO model to other modelling frameworks in attempts to capture additional waste-economyenvironment relationships: see KONDO and NAKAMURA (2005) Where the WIO framework and its extensions aim to incorporate waste and waste management into the input-output framework, our paper adopts a different approach, closer in similarity to a satellite-accounts approach.…”