A Triple Bottom Line Analysis of Global Consumption: Economic, Environmental, and Social Effects of Pre-Pandemic World Trade 1990–2015

This book adds a whole new dimension to the editors’ previous work on the social, economic, and environmental effects of global trade. For the first time it brings all three pillars of sustainability together into one coherent multiregional input–output (MRIO) framework. It shows the power of MRIO analysis to illuminate the local and global interdependencies of economic, environmental, and social systems and the benefits to be gained through analysing all three together. Change one thing and everything else changes. With chapters from around 60 researchers across 34 countries, this book illustrates the effect of natural resources and government policy settings 1990–2015 on the balancing act that was―and is―global trade. It provides a holistic systems’ view of how supply chains work, revealing how easily they can become fragmented and out of kilter. And within all the chaos of COVID-19 it shows how MRIO is the one tool that can help rebuild a post-pandemic global economy into a fairer, safer world.

Joy Murray is a senior research fellow with the Integrated Sustainability Analysis (ISA) group at the School of Physics, University of Sydney, Australia. Before joining ISA, Dr. Murray worked for over 25 years in education, preschool to postgraduate. She has also worked with residents of government housing estates to collaboratively develop leadership capacity.

Anne Owen is an academic fellow at the Sustainability Research Institute at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK. Dr. Owen has a background in end-use energy demand and consumption-based energy and carbon accounting using state-of-the-art MRIO databases. She is responsible for constructing the model being used to calculate the UK’s carbon and material footprint―the statistics reported annually by the UK Government.

Moana Simas is a researcher at the Sustainable Energy Technologies group at SINTEF, one of the largest independent research organizations in Europe. She has a background in environmental sciences and energy systems. Her current work focusses on assessing triple bottom line impacts of technology change, climate policies, and circular economy strategies on local and global value chains.

Arunima Malik is an academic at the University of Sydney. She has expertise in undertaking Big-Data modelling of sustainability performance of products, processes, and organisations, and to quantify sustainability impacts at local, national, and global scales. She works closely with the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network for undertaking assessments for quantifying spillover effects in international supply chains.