Quantifying Europe's biodiversity footprints and the role of urbanization and income. (2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Koslowski, Maximilian; Moran, Daniel D.; Tisserant, Alexandre; Verones, Francesca; Wood, Richard
• Is Part Of: Global sustainability. Volume 3(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020
• Subjects: Biodiversity footprint, -- MRIO, -- household consumption, -- footprint; Sustainability -- Periodicals; Sustainable development -- Periodicals; 304.2
• DOI: 10.1017/sus.2019.23
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2059-4798

Abstract

Non-technical abstract: Biodiversity footprinting links consumers to the biodiversity pressure their consumption induces, thereby informing choices and enabling participation in remediation measures. In order for countries, cities and households to reduce their impacts it is useful to know more precisely what the various drivers of their footprints are. Here we ask: do urban or rural areas in Europe exert higher biodiversity footprints? And how strongly coupled are income and biodiversity losses? Studying urban versus rural households at the country level in Europe, we found both have generally similar footprints, but that higher income households clearly drive higher footprints. Technical abstract: We examined the role of selected socio-economic variables regarding biodiversity-related impacts associated with European household consumption in 2005 and 2010, asking: does urbanization alone drive higher biodiversity footprints, or what are the relative contributions of income and urbanity? We applied a multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model, supplemented with data from consumer expenditure surveys and extended by life cycle impact assessment methodologies to account for biodiversity losses. We find that urbanization and higher income are important sources of higher absolute biodiversity footprints. On a per capita basis, results are mixed, though a slight trend of higher impacts from city residents in most countries, as well as a general positive correlation with income, can be observed. Also, while wealthy European countries are accountable for the largest species losses overall, it is the ones with a high gross domestic product per capita and those bordering the Mediterranean Sea that have the highest per capita biodiversity footprints. Additionally, most European countries and Europe as a whole are net importers of biodiversity losses, with land use generally being the dominating impact category.