MuSIASEM nexus analysis in post-industrial societies: Import dependence in Andorra

Post-industrial societies rely heavily on imports to sustain their activities. A consumption-based perspective, which accounts for resources embodied in trade, is essential to understand how their sustainability depends on externalised production processes. This paper applies the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) to develop a metabolic framework that links the performance of endosomatic and exosomatic metabolism with the embodied nexus elements —labour, land, water, and emissions— contained in energy and food imports across multiple scales. We apply this framework to Andorra, a small country in the European orbit. Using an end-use matrix, we analyse Andorra's metabolic pattern in relation to its functional identity. Our analysis indicates that Andorra's metabolic requirements are heavily dependent on imports of energy carriers and food. Subsequently, we quantify this externalisation by comparing the socio-environmental pressures embodied in imports with local values from Andorra's energy and agricultural sectors. Results show that in the energy sector, Andorra externalises seven times more labour, 40 times more land, six times more water and 17 times more GHG emissions than those used domestically. In the agricultural sector, the country externalises eight times more labour, 15 times more land, 22 times more water, and seven times more emissions through food imports than local values. These findings challenge simplistic sustainability narratives in the political discourse and highlight the need to incorporate externalisation in existing assessments to fully capture the global dependencies and impacts of post-industrial societies.