Tracing Primary PM _2.5 emissions via Chinese supply chains

Abstract

In this study, we examine a supply-chain approach to more effectively mitigate primary PM 2.5 emissions in China from the perspectives of production, consumption and their linkages using structural path analysis. We identify the pattern of all supply chain paths using principal component analysis. To address the severe haze problems in China, it is important to understand how final demand purchase initiates production processes and ultimately leads to primary PM 2.5 emission. We found that consumers' demands on power and transportation mainly induce direct emissions, quite different from the demands on construction, industry and service products which largely drive emissions in upstream activities. We also found that nearly 80% of the economic sectors in China follow a similar pattern in generating primary PM 2.5 emissions in electricity, cement and the ferrous metal industries; but only the construction sector increases the release of PM 2.5 due to the production of non-metallic mineral products. These findings indicate that further reduction of end-of-pipe emissions in the power and transportation sectors will facilitate cleaner production in almost all the economic sectors. However, for urbanization induced emissions, China should mitigate PM 2.5 emissions through the supply chain of construction, either severely reducing its life-cycle intensity or carefully planning to avoid extensive, unnecessary building activity.

Globalization and pollution: tele-connecting local primary PM 2.5 emissions to global consumption

“…In developing countries, a significant portion of PM 2.5 emissions (e.g. 60% in China and 40% in India) were related to capital investment (particularly in construction) [23,38], suggesting that investment contributed to an even greater proportion of PM 2.5 emissions than the proportion in their GDPs. Construction drives PM 2.5 emissions by creating an increasing market demand for the large-scale production expansion of cement, steel and other emission-intensive material, which has much larger emission intensity than the same products in other developed regions (more details in the following sections).…”

The roles of the metallurgy, nonmetal products and chemical industry sectors in air pollutant emissions in China

“…Identifying the drivers of MN&C could also help reduce the capacities of MN&C from the sources of the supply chain. Previously, final demand was identified as the ultimate driver of the supply chain using consumption-based accounting (Meng et al 2015, Zhao et al 2015, Huo et al 2014. However, this accounting approach cannot fully illustrate the driving forces of the MN&C downstream industries (Liang et al 2017b, Liang et al 2017a.…”

Tracking the PM2.5 inventories embodied in the trade among China, Japan and Korea

“…Sugiyama et al (2009) multiplied the estimated energy consumption associated with each fuel type by a PM10 emission factor incorporating the technological level of dust collection in each sector. Meng et al (2015) implemented the calculation according to three sources of PM2.5, stationary combustion, industrial processes and mobile sources.…”