Environmental footprints between China and the EU - new study by ISR

International trade has accelerated the trend of globalization, giving consumers and countries the opportunity to reach new markets and products. However, it also brought negative externalities in the forms of pollution and environmental degradation. In addition, the large amounts of resource flows among different countries may aggravate resource depletion. Uncovering the embodied resource flows can help prepare sustainable trade policies.

This paper accounts environmental and resources footprints embodied in the China-EU trade for the year of 2008 by employing a multi-regional input-output model, including both the global and sectoral environmental and resource footprints which caused by the trade between China and the EU-27 countries.

The results show that China's overall footprint is higher than the EU countries, but its per capital footprint is smaller than those in EU.

The paper also analyses the sectoral footprints between China and the five selected EU countries, proposing policy implications for environmental and resources management perspectives.