Embodied Energy and Economic Valuation

Costanza, Robert

doi:10.1126/science.210.4475.1219

Cited by 576 publications

(228 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…While Costanza (1980) estimated embodied energy using input-output life-cycle methods with unique system boundaries -with both labour and taxation as transfers, and the output of the economy as gross capital formation, inventory change, and exports -this type of approach has yet been used to examine the potential for changing consumption patterns within the system. In fact, Costanza (1980) was criticised for his approach for the very reason that it had no potential to examine consumption pattern changes within the system (Herendeen, 1981). This is true, but within the system, consumption can only be targeted at goods that are actually produced.…”

Section: Methodological Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Costanza (1980) produced an input-output model based on the principle that both labour and government revenue are simply exchanges, and where the output of the system was defined by gross capital formation, inventory increases, and exports. He found that when viewed in this way, the output of the economy has fixed energy intensities across all commodity groups.…”

Section: Life Cycle Analysis Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the results of the cases rest on the assumptions built into the LCA data. If the supply of labour is treated as exchange within the production process rather than an input into production, the variation in resource consumption from consumption pattern changes will greatly diminish (Costanza, 1980). Future research must be focussed on the challenge of producing theoretically consistent LCA data to guide policy making.…”

Section: Contribution To the Economy-environment Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is fertile ground for future research. 59 Rather than adjusting the system boundaries, as in the case of Costanza (1980).…”

Section: How Toimprove and Expandmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The Remarkable Environmental Rebound Effect of Electric Cars: A Microeconomic Approach

Vivanco

Freire‐González

Kemp

et al. 2014

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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The main objective of the thesis is to seek insights into the theory, and provide empirical evidence of rebound effects. Rebound effects reduce the environmental benefits of environmental policies and household behaviour changes. In particular, win-win demand side measures, in the form of energy efficiency and household consumption pattern changes, are seen as ways for households and businesses to save money and the environment. However, these savings have environmental impacts when spent, which are known as rebound effects. This is an area that has been widely neglected by policy makers.This work extends the rebound effect literature in three important ways, (1) it incorporates the potential for variation of rebound effects with household income level, (2) it enables the isolation of direct and indirect effects for cases of energy efficient technology adoption, and examines the relationship between these two component effects, and (3) it expands the scope of rebound effect analysis to include government taxes and subsidies. MACROBUTTON HTMLDirectUsing a case study approach it is found that the rebound effect from household consumption pattern changes targeted at electricity is between 5 and 10%. For consumption pattern changes with reduced vehicle fuel use, the rebound effect is in the order of 20 to 30%. Higher income households in general are found to have a lower total rebound effect; however the indirect effect becomes relatively more significant at higher household income levels. In the win-lose case of domestic photovoltaic electricity generation, it is demonstrated that negative rebound effects can occur, which can potentially amplify the environmental benefits of this action.The rebound effect from a carbon tax, which occurs due to the re-spending of raised revenues, was found to be in the range of 11-32%. Taxes and transfers between households of different income levels also have environmental implications. For example, a more progressive tax structure, with increased low income welfare payments is likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions. Subsidies aimed at encouraging environmentally friendly consumption habits are also subject to rebound effects, as they constitute a substitution of government expenditure for household expenditure. For policy makers, these findings point to the need to incorporate rebound effects in the environmental policy evaluation process.' KeywordsRebound effect, demand side management, direct rebound effect, indirect rebound effect, greenhouse gas emissions, CO 2 , household consumption patterns, efficiency, energy, conservation, natural resources. The energy and emissions produced at other stages of the production chain outside of the household scope. vi List of Tables and +/-is efficiency net effect minus the conservation net effect with negative values in parentheses). 66 Table 5.5: Rebound effects at mean and median total expenditure levels for separated fuel efficiency case (indirect reduction is the efficiency indirect rebound minus the conservation indir...

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Section: Methodological Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Life Cycle Analysis Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Contribution To the Economy-environment Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is fertile ground for future research. 59 Rather than adjusting the system boundaries, as in the case of Costanza (1980).…”

Section: How Toimprove and Expandmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Remarkable Environmental Rebound Effect of Electric Cars: A Microeconomic Approach

Vivanco

Freire‐González

Kemp

et al. 2014

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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“…Applying standard input-output techniques (23)(24)(25), in this study the indirect emissions, e 1 , are formulated as eq 1:…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Material and Energy Dependence of Services and Its Implications for Climate Change

Nansai

Kagawa

Suh

et al. 2009

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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As the services industry has grown and diversified, there has been a rapid rise in the share of energy and material costs in provision of services. As a result, services, which have traditionally been considered immaterial by their nature, are now absorbing substantial amounts of energy and material goods. By decomposing the CO 2 emissions embodied in material goods and services, this study quantitatively analyzes the implications of energy and materials consumption in services for the change in indirect CO 2 emissions by household consumers in Japan. The results show that the domestic CO 2 emissions associated with the energy and material goods absorbed by services through the supply chain increased consistently during the decade 1990-2000, thereby constituting a key element in the rise in CO 2 emissions due to household consumption. The energy and materials within the supply chain underlying services that have been identified as the main causes of this increase include electric power consumption, petroleum products, building renovation and repair, distribution of printed materials, plastic products and water, all of which are necessary to support the services in question. This study highlights the increasing importance of energy and materials consumption by services in the context of climate change policy.

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Long‐run evolution of the global economy: 1. Physical basis

Garrett

2014

Earth's Future

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Climate change is a two-way street during the Anthropocene: civilization depends upon a favorable climate at the same time that it modifies it. Yet studies that forecast economic growth employ fundamentally different equations and assumptions than those used to model Earth's physical, chemical, and biological processes. In the interest of establishing a common theoretical framework, this article treats humanity like any other physical process; that is, as an open, nonequilibrium thermodynamic system that sustains existing circulations and furthers its material growth through the consumption and dissipation of energy. The link of physical to economic quantities comes from a prior result that establishes a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and a historical accumulation of global economic wealth. What follows are nonequilibrium prognostic expressions for how wealth, energy consumption, and the Gross World Product (GWP) grow with time. This paper shows that the key components that determine whether civilization "innovates" itself toward faster economic growth include energy reserve discovery, improvements to human and infrastructure longevity, and reductions in the amount of energy required to extract raw materials. Growth slows due to a combination of prior growth, energy reserve depletion, and a "fraying" of civilization networks due to natural disasters. Theoretical and numerical arguments suggest that when growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to such externalities as natural disasters, and is at risk is for an accelerating collapse.Summary Linking physical to economic quantities comes from a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and historical accumulation of global economic wealth. When growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to externalities, such as natural disasters, and is at risk for accelerating collapse.

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Embodied Energy and Economic Valuation

Cited by 576 publications

References 12 publications

The Remarkable Environmental Rebound Effect of Electric Cars: A Microeconomic Approach

The Remarkable Environmental Rebound Effect of Electric Cars: A Microeconomic Approach

Material and Energy Dependence of Services and Its Implications for Climate Change

Long‐run evolution of the global economy: 1. Physical basis

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