The social and environmental dimensions of global value chains

As the economy has become more globalized, labour and environmental impacts have been redistributed throughout the globe. Today, the complexity and fragmentation of global value chains mean that the distance between production and consumption has become longer, and consumers are often not aware of the volume or location of the upstream impacts of goods and services. Within the past decade, the use of input-output models allied to bilateral trade data have been increasingly used to assess environmental pressures embodied in traded trade. Recent developments on building harmonized time series of multi-regional input-output databases have improved the potential to do analysis of the global economy. Here, I aim to lay out an analysis of the social and environmental dimensions of global value chains. In special, I focus on how trade and outsourcing affect labour worldwide. Low-cost labour has been one of the main factors for the increased level of outsourcing. Outsourced production comprise mainly manufacturing processes with high labour intensity and, often, stages in the production chain with high resource and energy use. While this increased labour generates positive impacts by creating jobs and generating income, especially in developing countries, it also generates undesirable social impacts and environmental externalities. The backbone of this thesis are a set of harmonized labour accounts developed for the multiregional input-output database EXIOBASE. This dataset allowed the analysis of socioeconomic and environmental impacts and pressures brought by the fragmentation of production chains in a single framework. In this thesis, I present two articles that describe the creation of this dataset and five articles that analysed different socioeconomic and environmental aspects of global value chains. We perform an analysis of productivity changes for labour, energy and greenhouse gas emissions when internalizing trade. We show that labour-intensive countries with lower labour costs also have lower energy and carbon productivities compared to developed economies, and show that the relocation of labour-intensive production stages to lower-income countries can lead to higher overall environmental pressures. The evolution of how labour and carbon are distributed in global value chains is further explored through an analysis over time where we show that, for developed regions, outsourcing and changes in trading partners have contributed to changes in labour and carbon footprints, while both labour and carbon footprint in developing regions were mainly driven by their own increased domestic consumption. In addition, we show how environmental footprints are strongly coupled to the countries’ affluence, and the decoupling of environmental pressures embodied in consumption from economic development present a much higher challenge that goes beyond improving domestic technology. The challenge for meeting social development while reducing global environmental pressures require multilateral efforts that combine consumers and producers in global value chains. However, any changes in the production structure in a globalized economy, for example, driven by multilateral environmental policies such as climate agreements, can affect workers all around the world. We show that there are large volumes of labour embodied in global value chains. Furthermore, there are differences in labour conditions and composition between developing and developed regions. We quantify undesirable labour conditions associated with international trade, and show that high-income countries can double their ‘bad labour’ footprints when accounting for imports from less developed regions. The undesirable labour conditions we quantify are occupational health damage, vulnerable employment, gender inequality, incidence of unskilled and low-skilled workers, child labour, and forced labour. While any social impact of global value chains, negative or positive, driven by consumption, both consumers and producers benefit from trade. The reduction of undesirable labour conditions and improving the resilience of low-income workers in periods of economic stagnation or recession are of crucial importance for attaining the sustainable development goals of decent work. We show that low-skilled workers and workers in self-employment in the supply chain of traded goods are more vulnerable to economic downturns. During economic crisis, such as the one experienced in 2008/09, reduced consumption led to a decline in trade, which in turn resulted in loss of employment and income worldwide. However, reduced consumption in developed economies affected workers in developing economies the most. Understanding the links between employment and income in global value chains gives us the opportunity to improve international cooperation to reduce environmental pressures in global value chains, while at the same time maintaining the economic benefits required to fulfil human needs and reduce global inequalities. This thesis aims to contribute to such efforts

Socio-economic Benefits of Wind Power in Brazil

Investments in renewable energy and climate change mitigation go beyond the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Secondary benefits include technology transfer, reduction in emissions of other pollutants, and job creation, often called green jobs. It is known that job creation reflects on social, economic, environmental and territorial aspects. Therefore, it can be an indicator of social performance of energy projects. Wind power has experienced an explosive growth over the past few years, and projects contracted between 2009 and 2011 will increase Brazilian installed capacity by 450% in 2016. This article evaluates the potential consequences of this rapid growth on job creation in Brazil. Jobs were quantified in manufacturing, installation and operation stages, observing national manufacture of major components. Estimated wind power growth will generate 90,000 jobs from 2012 till 2016. Over 74% of the jobs are created in the construction and operation stages, which have high level of local employment, bringing social and economic benefits to the installation sites

Energia eólica, geração de empregos e desenvolvimento sustentável

A energia eólica no Brasil passou por um período de lento crescimento, porém, os projetos contratados nos últimos três anos deverão quintuplicar a capacidade instalada. É a tecnologia limpa que mais tem crescido na última década, trazendo benefícios ambientais e sociais para diversos países. Nosso trabalho buscou quantificar a geração de empregos diretos e indiretos pela energia eólica no país. Até 2020, serão gerados 195 mil empregos, e 70% desses são diretos, a maioria na construção civil, com grande potencial para a criação de empregos em localidades rurais. Assim, a energia eólica deverá contribuir decisivamente para o desenvolvimento sustentável do país.Wind power development in Brazil has experienced a long period of slow growth; however, projects contracted over the last three years might increase the current installed capacity by fivefold. This was the fastest growing clean energy technology over the last decade, bringing environmental and social benefits to several countries. Our work has determined direct and indirect job creation potential due to indigenous wind power deployment. About 195,000 jobs will be created up to 2020, out of which 70% direct, and most of them in construction, which has great local job creation potential. Therefore, wind power plays a major role in the sustainable development of the country

Does climate action destroy jobs? An assessment of the employment implications of the 2‐degree goal

The Paris Agreement lays out the objective of keeping global warming below 2 °C. The goal can be achieved by increasing both the share of renewables in the energy mix and energy efficiency. Such action entails a transformation of the energy sector, which, given its linkages with the rest of the economy, will have a knock‐on effect on other sectors. Using scenarios based on a multiregional input–output database, this article explores the economy‐wide and worldwide employment impact of such a transition. Findings suggest that by 2030 most economies will experience net job creation and reallocation across industries. Job creation is driven by the construction, manufacturing and renewables sectors.acceptedVersionThis is the peer reviewed version of an article, which has been published in final form at [https://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12118]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving

Circular Economy and the triple bottom line in Norway

A more circular economy aims to reduce global material consumption, make the most out of our resources, and create a more sustainable economic system. In this paper, we analyze how different circular economy actions in Norway affect indicators in the three pillars of sustainable development: economic prosperity (measured by value added), social equity (measured by employment opportunities), and environmental protection (measured by greenhouse gas emissions). Based on priorities of the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan and characteristics of the Norwegian economy, we have selected five value chains for analysis: electronics; textiles; construction and building; packaging and plastics; and metal efficiency. The results show that there is a substantial potential for increased value added and employment in Norway related to the circular transition, while at the same time mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. For increased material efficiency (plastic packaging, metals), employment gains can be substantial, while imports of metals and plastics decrease, resulting in lower upstream emissions, but higher Norwegian emissions. For consumer goods (textiles, electronics), the positive effects come about from shifting from a buy-and-discard model to a buy-repair/share/use longer model, resulting in increased employment in Norway and decreased imports, which potentially leads to lower emissions, but also lower employment globally. For re-use/re-purpose and recycling of building materials, emission-intense material extraction and processing activities are replaced by more labour intense activities, but has the largest potential of decreasing emissions within Norway.publishedVersio

The social and environmental dimensions of global value chains

As the economy has become more globalized, labour and environmental impacts have been redistributed throughout the globe. Today, the complexity and fragmentation of global value chains mean that the distance between production and consumption has become longer, and consumers are often not aware of the volume or location of the upstream impacts of goods and services. Within the past decade, the use of input-output models allied to bilateral trade data have been increasingly used to assess environmental pressures embodied in traded trade. Recent developments on building harmonized time series of multi-regional input-output databases have improved the potential to do analysis of the global economy. Here, I aim to lay out an analysis of the social and environmental dimensions of global value chains. In special, I focus on how trade and outsourcing affect labour worldwide. Low-cost labour has been one of the main factors for the increased level of outsourcing. Outsourced production comprise mainly manufacturing processes with high labour intensity and, often, stages in the production chain with high resource and energy use. While this increased labour generates positive impacts by creating jobs and generating income, especially in developing countries, it also generates undesirable social impacts and environmental externalities. The backbone of this thesis are a set of harmonized labour accounts developed for the multiregional input-output database EXIOBASE. This dataset allowed the analysis of socioeconomic and environmental impacts and pressures brought by the fragmentation of production chains in a single framework. In this thesis, I present two articles that describe the creation of this dataset and five articles that analysed different socioeconomic and environmental aspects of global value chains. We perform an analysis of productivity changes for labour, energy and greenhouse gas emissions when internalizing trade. We show that labour-intensive countries with lower labour costs also have lower energy and carbon productivities compared to developed economies, and show that the relocation of labour-intensive production stages to lower-income countries can lead to higher overall environmental pressures. The evolution of how labour and carbon are distributed in global value chains is further explored through an analysis over time where we show that, for developed regions, outsourcing and changes in trading partners have contributed to changes in labour and carbon footprints, while both labour and carbon footprint in developing regions were mainly driven by their own increased domestic consumption. In addition, we show how environmental footprints are strongly coupled to the countries’ affluence, and the decoupling of environmental pressures embodied in consumption from economic development present a much higher challenge that goes beyond improving domestic technology. The challenge for meeting social development while reducing global environmental pressures require multilateral efforts that combine consumers and producers in global value chains. However, any changes in the production structure in a globalized economy, for example, driven by multilateral environmental policies such as climate agreements, can affect workers all around the world. We show that there are large volumes of labour embodied in global value chains. Furthermore, there are differences in labour conditions and composition between developing and developed regions. We quantify undesirable labour conditions associated with international trade, and show that high-income countries can double their ‘bad labour’ footprints when accounting for imports from less developed regions. The undesirable labour conditions we quantify are occupational health damage, vulnerable employment, gender inequality, incidence of unskilled and low-skilled workers, child labour, and forced labour. While any social impact of global value chains, negative or positive, driven by consumption, both consumers and producers benefit from trade. The reduction of undesirable labour conditions and improving the resilience of low-income workers in periods of economic stagnation or recession are of crucial importance for attaining the sustainable development goals of decent work. We show that low-skilled workers and workers in self-employment in the supply chain of traded goods are more vulnerable to economic downturns. During economic crisis, such as the one experienced in 2008/09, reduced consumption led to a decline in trade, which in turn resulted in loss of employment and income worldwide. However, reduced consumption in developed economies affected workers in developing economies the most. Understanding the links between employment and income in global value chains gives us the opportunity to improve international cooperation to reduce environmental pressures in global value chains, while at the same time maintaining the economic benefits required to fulfil human needs and reduce global inequalities. This thesis aims to contribute to such efforts

Wind energy and sustainable development in Brazil: estimating job creation through an extended input-output approach

A preocupação com as questões ambientais e a busca pela mitigação das mudanças climáticas levaram a uma corrida pelo desenvolvimento e inserção de tecnologias de energias renováveis na matriz elétrica em diversos países. Dentre as tecnologias, a energia eólica foi a que recentemente obteve maior sucesso, tendo um crescimento de quase 15 vezes entre 2000 e 2011. A adoção de políticas de incentivo, muitas vezes baseadas em subsídios, levou à discussão dos benefícios sociais e econômicos trazidos por esta tecnologia, principalmente sobre o impacto no nível de empregos. Neste contexto, diversos estudos têm sido realizados para quantificar os empregos gerados pelas tecnologias de energias renováveis, chegando à conclusão de que estas são mais intensivas em empregos que as tecnologias tradicionais a combustíveis fósseis. No entanto, os estudos que buscam a avaliação da geração de empregos por estas tecnologias diferem em metodologias e premissas adotadas e apresentam os resultados de maneira agregada, não permitindo a comparação entre estes, além de não haver estudos disponíveis para mercados eólicos na América Latina. No Brasil, o crescimento da energia eólica passou por um longo período de lento crescimento, porém, nos últimos três anos, a contratação de projetos eólicos deverá elevar a capacidade instalada em operação em quase cinco vezes em apenas cinco anos, fazendo-se necessária a avaliação do impacto deste crescimento no nível de empregos no país. A presente dissertação buscou quantificar o potencial de geração de empregos pela energia eólica no Brasil, não só pela avaliação dos empregos diretos, mas também os empregos indiretos gerados na economia devido à demanda de insumos. Para isso, foram integradas as ferramentas de avaliação de ciclo de vida, entrevistas semi-estruturadas, matriz insumo-produto e elaboração de cenários. Os resultados obtidos permitem afirmar que a energia eólica pode oferecer uma contribuição significativa para a geração de empregos, gerando até 330 mil empregos-ano até 2020. Os empregos diretos correspondem a cerca de 70% dos empregos totais, e a maior contribuição é dada pela atividade de construção, que possui ainda grande potencial para a criação de empregos locais em diversas localidades rurais. Assim, a energia eólica tem potencial para contribuir para o desenvolvimento sustentável no Brasil.The concern on environmental impacts and the search for climate change mitigation have led many countries on the run to accelerate the development and the deployment of renewable energy technologies. Among those, wind power was recently the most successful technology, having achieved a growth of almost 15 times between 2000 and 2011. The adoption of incentive policies, especially those based on subsides, has led to the discussion of social and environmental benefits brought by this technology, focusing efforts on the assessment of the impacts on employment levels. Several studies have been made to quantify job creation by renewable energy technologies, and the main conclusion has been that they are more labor intensive than traditional fossil fuels technologies. However, the studies differ in methods and assumptions, and results are often published in an aggregated manner, making it difficult to compare the results. There are no studies available applied to the Latin American region. Wind power in Brazil has grown in a slow pace for over a decade. However, in the last three years, the projects contracted should increased wind power installed capacity in almost five times in only five years. This rapid estimated growth demands the assessment of impacts in the employment level. The present dissertation aimed to quantify the job creation potential of wind energy in Brazil. We have quantified not only direct jobs but also indirect jobs created in the Brazilian economy by the demand of inputs. To achieve this goal, we created a model that integrates life cycle assessment, semi-structured interviews, input-output models and scenario building. The obtained results let us affirm that wind energy can offer a significant contribution to job creation in Brazil, creating over 300 thousand job-years until 2020. Direct jobs account for around 70% of total jobs, and major contribution is found to be in the construction stage, which also has high potential to create local jobs in several rural areas. Thus, wind energy has the potential to contribute to sustainable development in Brazil

Wind energy and sustainable development in Brazil: estimating job creation through an extended input-output approach

A preocupação com as questões ambientais e a busca pela mitigação das mudanças climáticas levaram a uma corrida pelo desenvolvimento e inserção de tecnologias de energias renováveis na matriz elétrica em diversos países. Dentre as tecnologias, a energia eólica foi a que recentemente obteve maior sucesso, tendo um crescimento de quase 15 vezes entre 2000 e 2011. A adoção de políticas de incentivo, muitas vezes baseadas em subsídios, levou à discussão dos benefícios sociais e econômicos trazidos por esta tecnologia, principalmente sobre o impacto no nível de empregos. Neste contexto, diversos estudos têm sido realizados para quantificar os empregos gerados pelas tecnologias de energias renováveis, chegando à conclusão de que estas são mais intensivas em empregos que as tecnologias tradicionais a combustíveis fósseis. No entanto, os estudos que buscam a avaliação da geração de empregos por estas tecnologias diferem em metodologias e premissas adotadas e apresentam os resultados de maneira agregada, não permitindo a comparação entre estes, além de não haver estudos disponíveis para mercados eólicos na América Latina. No Brasil, o crescimento da energia eólica passou por um longo período de lento crescimento, porém, nos últimos três anos, a contratação de projetos eólicos deverá elevar a capacidade instalada em operação em quase cinco vezes em apenas cinco anos, fazendo-se necessária a avaliação do impacto deste crescimento no nível de empregos no país. A presente dissertação buscou quantificar o potencial de geração de empregos pela energia eólica no Brasil, não só pela avaliação dos empregos diretos, mas também os empregos indiretos gerados na economia devido à demanda de insumos. Para isso, foram integradas as ferramentas de avaliação de ciclo de vida, entrevistas semi-estruturadas, matriz insumo-produto e elaboração de cenários. Os resultados obtidos permitem afirmar que a energia eólica pode oferecer uma contribuição significativa para a geração de empregos, gerando até 330 mil empregos-ano até 2020. Os empregos diretos correspondem a cerca de 70% dos empregos totais, e a maior contribuição é dada pela atividade de construção, que possui ainda grande potencial para a criação de empregos locais em diversas localidades rurais. Assim, a energia eólica tem potencial para contribuir para o desenvolvimento sustentável no Brasil.The concern on environmental impacts and the search for climate change mitigation have led many countries on the run to accelerate the development and the deployment of renewable energy technologies. Among those, wind power was recently the most successful technology, having achieved a growth of almost 15 times between 2000 and 2011. The adoption of incentive policies, especially those based on subsides, has led to the discussion of social and environmental benefits brought by this technology, focusing efforts on the assessment of the impacts on employment levels. Several studies have been made to quantify job creation by renewable energy technologies, and the main conclusion has been that they are more labor intensive than traditional fossil fuels technologies. However, the studies differ in methods and assumptions, and results are often published in an aggregated manner, making it difficult to compare the results. There are no studies available applied to the Latin American region. Wind power in Brazil has grown in a slow pace for over a decade. However, in the last three years, the projects contracted should increased wind power installed capacity in almost five times in only five years. This rapid estimated growth demands the assessment of impacts in the employment level. The present dissertation aimed to quantify the job creation potential of wind energy in Brazil. We have quantified not only direct jobs but also indirect jobs created in the Brazilian economy by the demand of inputs. To achieve this goal, we created a model that integrates life cycle assessment, semi-structured interviews, input-output models and scenario building. The obtained results let us affirm that wind energy can offer a significant contribution to job creation in Brazil, creating over 300 thousand job-years until 2020. Direct jobs account for around 70% of total jobs, and major contribution is found to be in the construction stage, which also has high potential to create local jobs in several rural areas. Thus, wind energy has the potential to contribute to sustainable development in Brazil

The Future is Circular - Circular Economy and Critical Minerals for the Green Transition

The transition towards a net-zero economy will require a large-scale implementation of low-carbon technologies. Concerns have been raised whether the availability of minerals will be a bottleneck for the green transition, prompting discussion about the opening new mining frontiers for supplying these minerals. One of the most controversial options is the exploration of minerals in the deep sea. Critical minerals are those that have a significant economic importance and that have risks to their supply. Many low-carbon technologies currently depend on these critical minerals. The total demand for minerals and whether critical minerals will become a challenge for the green transition depending on the path we take. The technological choices for decarbonisation in the coming decades are highly uncertain and depend on a wide range of factors such as prices, resource constraints, social and environmental standards, and innovation and technological development. How each of these factors will develop in the medium and long term and how they will interact with each other cannot be predicted. This report looks at the mineral demand for a net-zero emissions energy system, based on the technological decarbonisation path of the Net Zero by 2050 scenario developed by the International Energy Agency. It focuses on seven critical minerals for the green transition: lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, rare earth elements, platinum and copper. These are among the most discussed in studies on mineral bottleneck for new energy technologies and for which demand is expected to grow many-fold. This report looks at the challenge of mineral availability through different perspectives. First, how will technology choices and technology development in the next decades affect total mineral demand? Second, how can circular economy strategies reduce the demand for minerals and also increase the recovery and use of recycled minerals? And finally, what does it mean to have a responsible supply of minerals for the green transition?publishedVersio