Quantifying resource footprints of products and services as the exergy extracted from nature by different countries

Although our whole society depends on the use of natural resources, they are not always used in a sustainable way. To achieve a more sustainable development, resource consumption needs to be measured. Therefore, resource footprint frameworks are being developed. These frameworks integrate inventory methodologies, which quantify the specific resources consumed by a system, with resource accounting impact methodologies, addressing the environmental impact of resource consumption, e.g. the Ecological Footprint. To calculate the inventory of systems at micro-level (processes, products), process-models are generally used, as applied in process-based Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). For systems at meso- and macro-level (sectors, countries), economic input-output/IO-models are mostly used instead of process-models, as applied in IO-analysis and IO-based LCA. The objective of this paper is the development of a new resource footprint framework called IO-CEENE, in which a world IO-model (Exiobase), providing a global perspective, is integrated with the CEENE methodology (Cumulative Exergy Extraction from the Natural Environment), providing a more complete resource range. CEENE is an exergy-based method, thus it considers not only the resource quantity but also the extent to which consumption removes resource quality. Among the exergy-based methods, CEENE covers the largest number of resource groups: fossil fuels, nuclear resources, metals, minerals, land resources, water resources, abiotic renewable resources and atmospheric resources. This new framework allows one to calculate resource footprints of products or services consumed in different countries as the exergy extracted from nature. The way the framework is constructed makes it possible to show which resources and countries contribute to the total footprint. This is illustrated by a case study on wheat production