National policies for reducing environmental pressures stemming from emissions
and the use of natural resources usually adopt a producer approach, i.e. the
legislation refers to pressures occurring within the territorial boundaries of a
country. An alternative approach to environmental accounting is the consumer
approach, which includes environmental pressures associated with imports for
domestic consumption, wherever these pressures occur. The carbon footprint, for
example, is such an approach, in which CO2 or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are
considered from a consumer’s perspective. The consumer approach may offer new
ways for policies to reduce pressures, and therefore it would be interesting to
adopt this perspective in national environmental policy-making and international
negotiations. To gain insight into the differences between the approaches, this
paper discusses the concepts of both, showing the results of an empirical
analysis and going into the application of the two different perspectives in
(international) environmental policies.
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Keywords: Environmental accounting, responsibility, multi-region input-output analysis, international trade, environmental policy
This publication is not available as PDF file. But there is an earlier version available. Click here.