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Capital in the American carbon, energy, and material footprint

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  • Peter Berrill
  • T. Reed Miller
  • Yasushi Kondo
  • Edgar G. Hertwich

Abstract

Stocks of fixed capital play a vital role in fulfilling basic human needs and facilitating industrial production. Their build‐up requires great quantities of energy and materials, and generates greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution. Capital stocks influence economic production and environmental pollution through their construction and over subsequent decades through their use. We perform an environmental footprint analysis of total consumption, capital investment, and capital consumption in the United States for 2007 and 2012. In 2012, capital consumption accounted for 13%, 19%, and 40% of total carbon, energy, and material footprints, respectively. Housing, federal defense, state and local government education and other services (including household consumption of roads), personal transport fuels, and hospitals are the consumption sectors with largest capital footprints. These sectors provide fundamental needs of shelter, transport, education, and health, underlying the importance of capital services. Endogenizing capital causes the biggest proportional increase to footprints of sectors with low environmental multipliers. This work builds upon existing input‐output models of production and consumption in the United States, and provides a capital‐inclusive database of carbon, energy, and material footprints and multipliers for 2007 and 2012. This article met the requirements for a gold – gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Berrill & T. Reed Miller & Yasushi Kondo & Edgar G. Hertwich, 2020. "Capital in the American carbon, energy, and material footprint," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 24(3), pages 589-600, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:24:y:2020:i:3:p:589-600
    DOI: 10.1111/jiec.12953
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Kennedy, Christopher, 2022. "Capital, energy and carbon in the United States economy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    2. Geng, Yaxin & Rao, Pinyang & Sharif, Arshian, 2022. "Natural resource management and ecological sustainability: Dynamic role of social disparity and human development in G10 Economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Sun, Yunpeng & Tian, Wenjuan & Mehmood, Usman & Zhang, Xiaoyu & Tariq, Salman, 2023. "How do natural resources, urbanization, and institutional quality meet with ecological footprints in the presence of income inequality and human capital in the next eleven countries?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    4. Gilang Hardadi & Alexander Buchholz & Stefan Pauliuk, 2021. "Implications of the distribution of German household environmental footprints across income groups for integrating environmental and social policy design," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(1), pages 95-113, February.
    5. Takuma Watari & Zhi Cao & Sho Hata & Keisuke Nansai, 2022. "Efficient use of cement and concrete to reduce reliance on supply-side technologies for net-zero emissions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    6. Christopher Kennedy, 2020. "Energy and capital," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 24(5), pages 1047-1058, October.
    7. Glenn A. Aguilar‐Hernandez & Sebastiaan Deetman & Stefano Merciai & João F. D. Rodrigues & Arnold Tukker, 2021. "Global distribution of material inflows to in‐use stocks in 2011 and its implications for a circularity transition," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(6), pages 1447-1461, December.

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