The modest environmental relief resulting from the transition to a service economy

Henriques, Sofia Teives; Kander, Astrid

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.08.010

Cited by 66 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Conversely, primary and secondary industries producing significant direct impacts but with lower reliance on high-wage labour have been overemphasized in relation to their environmental impact, since the demand for products from these industries is generated by the household consumption supporting production in other economic sectors, notably in Services. Our results are in line with those of Stern et al [47], Henriques and Kander [48], Parrique et al [49], and Fix [50], all of whom note a relative lack of importance of structural economic changes for environmental outcomes.…”

Section: Assessing Potential For Green Growth Via a Shift To Servicessupporting

confidence: 93%

Shifting economic activity to services has limited potential to reduce global environmental impacts due to the household consumption of labour

Greenford

Crownshaw

Lesk

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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The tertiary (or ‘service’) sector is commonly identified as a relatively clean part of the economy. Accordingly, sustainable development policy routinely invokes ‘tertiarization’—a shift from primary and secondary sectors to the tertiary sector—as a means of decoupling economic growth from environmental damages. However, this argument does not account for environmental impacts related to the household consumption of tertiary sector employees. Here we show using a novel analytical framework that when the household consumption of labour is treated as a necessary and endogenous input to production, the environmental impacts of all sectors converge. This shift in perspective also exacerbates existing disparities in the attribution of environmental impact from economic activity among developed and developing economies. Our findings suggest that decoupling of economic activity from environmental impacts is unlikely to be achieved by transitioning to a service-based economy alone, but rather, that reducing environmental damages from economic activity may require fundamental changes to the scale and composition of consumption across all economic sectors.

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Section: Assessing Potential For Green Growth Via a Shift To Servicessupporting

confidence: 93%

Shifting economic activity to services has limited potential to reduce global environmental impacts due to the household consumption of labour

Greenford

Crownshaw

Lesk

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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show abstract

“…As countries industrialize and consequently increase their production and exports of industrial goods, this causes the upward slope of the EKC (Goldenberg and Reddy ; Panayotou , ). The downward slope of the EKC is then caused by the industrialized countries importing industrial goods instead of producing them domestically (Suri and Chapman ) as well as through structural and technological change (Henriques and Kander ; Kander et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Industrial Intensification and Energy Embodied in Trade: Long‐Run Energy Perspective of the Planned Economy of Czechoslovakia

Nielsen

2017

J of Industrial Ecology

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This paper examines the role of foreign trade in the consumption of energy in Czechoslovakia through a bottom-up approach in accounting for energy embodied in trade with manufactured goods. It provides a unique analysis of annual changes in energy embodied in trade in a country characterized by changing political regimes. On the whole, Czechoslovakia has been a net exporter of energy throughout the twentieth century with an average 12% of domestic energy consumption embodied in exports. The role of central planning was found to have a significant effect on the absolute levels of energy embodied in trade, which reached its peak in 1972, when Czechoslovakia had net exports of embodied energy of 29 gigajoules per capita, well above those of Sweden in 1970 or China in 2013. Increased product specialization with a shift toward heavy industrial goods also had a clear impact on the composition of energy embodied in exports. Despite this development, the energy intensity curve of Czechoslovakia does not change substantially when adjusted for foreign trade. Keywords:central planning Czechoslovakia economic history embodied energy foreign trade industrial ecology Supporting information is linked to this article on the JIE website

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“…This while deindustrialization appears to be a social fact, from the viewpoint of real output and the associated environmental burdens, the transition to the service economy is largely a price illusion, driven by "Baumol"s cost disease'. That is, personal services (playing a major role in the service sector) become more expensive relative to goods where innovation can lower the total (and especially labour) costs [21,22]. The latter kind of goods predominate in the industrial sector, and so by itself this price effect will change the structure of the economy as expressed in current prices,.…”

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At least in Sweden, this was certainly true in domestic housing, which became better insulated. But the bulk of energy savings after 1970 took place within the manufacturing sector, and it appears as the relation between energy and economic growth actually changed in the 1970s [13,21]. Another indication that energy became less important for economic growth after 1970 is found in Figure 5, which shows the estimates of Warr et al [28] as to the amount of energy services (that is, "work done" or energy that was converted into and directly used as heat, light, motion, and electricity) utilised in advanced economies in relation to their GDP.…”

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Energy Quality in Shaping Long-Term Energy Intensity in Europe

2014

Self Cite

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Abstract:On the European aggregate level there is an inverted-U curve for long-term energy intensity. In the 19th century aggregate European energy intensity rose, followed by a declining trend during the 20th century. This article discusses the possible explanations for the declining trend during the 20th century and explores the role of energy quality as expressed in energy prices. For the first time a complete set of national energy retail prices covering two centuries has been constructed and used for Britain, while the energy price data previously available for Sweden until 2000 has been updated to 2009. This allows us to explore the role of energy quality in shaping long-term energy intensity. We find no relation between energy quality and energy intensity in the 19th century, while energy quality may have stimulated the declining energy intensity in Europe over the 20th century, but is not the sole or even main reason for the decline. Rather, increased economic efficiency in the use of energy services seems to have been the main driver for the decline after 1970, presumably driven by the information and communication technology.

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The modest environmental relief resulting from the transition to a service economy

Cited by 66 publications

References 17 publications

Shifting economic activity to services has limited potential to reduce global environmental impacts due to the household consumption of labour

Shifting economic activity to services has limited potential to reduce global environmental impacts due to the household consumption of labour

Industrial Intensification and Energy Embodied in Trade: Long‐Run Energy Perspective of the Planned Economy of Czechoslovakia

The Role of Energy Quality in Shaping Long-Term Energy Intensity in Europe

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