Steinmann Zoran J N, Schipper Aafke M, Hauck Mara, Giljum Stefan, Wernet Gregor, Huijbregts Mark A J
Department of Environmental Science, Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud University , Heyendaalseweg 135, 6525 AJ Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Institute for Ecological Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) , Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria.
Environ Sci Technol. 2017 Jun 6;51(11):6360-6366. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.7b00698. Epub 2017 May 26.
Environmental footprints are increasingly used to quantify and compare environmental impacts of for example products, technologies, households, or nations. This has resulted in a multitude of footprint indicators, ranging from relatively simple measures of resource use (water, energy, materials) to integrated measures of eventual damage (for example, extinction of species). Yet, the possible redundancies among these different footprints have not yet been quantified. This paper analyzes the relationships between two comprehensive damage footprints and four resource footprints associated with 976 products. The resource footprints accounted for >90% of the variation in the damage footprints. Human health damage was primarily associated with the energy footprint, via emissions resulting from fossil fuel combustion. Biodiversity damage was mainly related to the energy and land footprints, the latter being mainly determined by agriculture and forestry. Our results indicate that relatively simple resource footprints are highly representative of damage to human health and biodiversity.
环境足迹越来越多地用于量化和比较例如产品、技术、家庭或国家的环境影响。这导致了大量的足迹指标，从相对简单的资源使用量度（水、能源、材料）到最终损害的综合量度（例如物种灭绝）。然而，这些不同足迹之间可能存在的冗余尚未得到量化。本文分析了与976种产品相关的两种综合损害足迹和四种资源足迹之间的关系。资源足迹占损害足迹变化的90%以上。人类健康损害主要与能源足迹相关，这是通过化石燃料燃烧产生的排放造成的。生物多样性损害主要与能源和土地足迹有关，后者主要由农业和林业决定。我们的结果表明，相对简单的资源足迹高度代表了对人类健康和生物多样性的损害。
