IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v242y2026ics0921800925003908.html

Leveraging international trade for the ecological transition: Quantifying the drivers of planetary boundaries

Author

Listed:
  • Carneiro, Gabriel Santos
  • Magacho, Guilherme Riccioppo
  • Espagne, Etienne

Abstract

Seven of the nine Planetary Boundaries have been breached by now. As a large share of human economic activities is enabled by international trade, this paper aims to analyze the footprints of global trade over the planetary boundaries. Using a multi-regional input-output database, we calculate ecological footprints embodied in trade relations related to the different planetary boundaries for different countries and economic activities through a modified method of consumption-based accounting. Results suggest that the pressure on planetary boundaries attributable to global trade ranges from 19 % to 50 %, depending on the boundary. The heterogeneity in pressure levels reflects the diverse economic structures of countries and regions, highlighting the influence of geographic and productive factors on ecological footprints. In general, Europe, North America and East Asia tend to be major regions impacting boundaries due to their import structure. However, from an export perspective, the picture is more heterogenous, with almost every single region contributing to pressures in a different way. All in all, global trade policies appear to be an important potential leverage to mitigate pressures on planetary boundaries.

Suggested Citation

  • Carneiro, Gabriel Santos & Magacho, Guilherme Riccioppo & Espagne, Etienne, 2026. "Leveraging international trade for the ecological transition: Quantifying the drivers of planetary boundaries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:242:y:2026:i:c:s0921800925003908
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108907
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800925003908
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108907?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. M. Lenzen & D. Moran & K. Kanemoto & B. Foran & L. Lobefaro & A. Geschke, 2012. "International trade drives biodiversity threats in developing nations," Nature, Nature, vol. 486(7401), pages 109-112, June.
    2. Gregor Semieniuk & Emanuele Campiglio & Jean‐Francois Mercure & Ulrich Volz & Neil R. Edwards, 2021. "Low‐carbon transition risks for finance," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), January.
    3. Dorninger, Christian & Hornborg, Alf & Abson, David J. & von Wehrden, Henrik & Schaffartzik, Anke & Giljum, Stefan & Engler, John-Oliver & Feller, Robert L. & Hubacek, Klaus & Wieland, Hanspeter, 2021. "Global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange: Implications for sustainability in the 21st century," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    4. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    5. Georgina M. Mace & Mike Barrett & Neil D. Burgess & Sarah E. Cornell & Robin Freeman & Monique Grooten & Andy Purvis, 2018. "Aiming higher to bend the curve of biodiversity loss," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(9), pages 448-451, September.
    6. Andrew K. Jorgenson, 2016. "Environment, Development, and Ecologically Unequal Exchange," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-15, March.
    7. Samaniego, Pablo & Vallejo, María Cristina & Martínez-Alier, Joan, 2017. "Commercial and biophysical deficits in South America, 1990–2013," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 62-73.
    8. Philipp Semenchuk & Christoph Plutzar & Thomas Kastner & Sarah Matej & Giorgio Bidoglio & Karl-Heinz Erb & Franz Essl & Helmut Haberl & Johannes Wessely & Fridolin Krausmann & Stefan Dullinger, 2022. "Publisher Correction: Relative effects of land conversion and land-use intensity on terrestrial vertebrate diversity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-1, December.
    9. Muradian, Roldan & Cahyafitri, Raras & Ferrando, Tomaso & Grottera, Carolina & Jardim-Wanderley, Luiz & Krause, Torsten & Kurniawan, Nanang I. & Loft, Lasse & Nurshafira, Tadzkia & Prabawati-Suwito, D, 2025. "Will the EU deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) reduce tropical forest loss? Insights from three producer countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    10. C. A. Hidalgo & B. Klinger & A. -L. Barabasi & R. Hausmann, 2007. "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations," Papers 0708.2090, arXiv.org.
    11. Daniel W. O’Neill & Andrew L. Fanning & William F. Lamb & Julia K. Steinberger, 2018. "A good life for all within planetary boundaries," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(2), pages 88-95, February.
    12. Jeffrey Althouse & Romain Svartzman, 2022. "Bringing subordinated financialisation down to earth: the political ecology of finance-dominated capitalism," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 46(4), pages 679-702.
    13. Antoine Godin & Anda David & Oskar Lecuyer & Stéphanie Leyronas, 2022. "A strong sustainability approach to development trajectories," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 19(3), pages 381-396, December.
    14. Francesca Verones & Stefanie Hellweg & Assumpció Antón & Ligia B. Azevedo & Abhishek Chaudhary & Nuno Cosme & Stefano Cucurachi & Laura de Baan & Yan Dong & Peter Fantke & Laura Golsteijn & Michael Ha, 2020. "LC‐IMPACT: A regionalized life cycle damage assessment method," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 24(6), pages 1201-1219, December.
    15. Olk, Christopher, 2024. "How much a dollar cost: Currency hierarchy as a driver of ecologically unequal exchange," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    16. Jeroen B. Guinée & Arjan de Koning & Reinout Heijungs, 2022. "Life cycle assessment‐based Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment is also relative," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(3), pages 673-682, June.
    17. Marvin Bachmann & Christian Zibunas & Jan Hartmann & Victor Tulus & Sangwon Suh & Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez & André Bardow, 2023. "Towards circular plastics within planetary boundaries," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 6(5), pages 599-610, May.
    18. Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid & Lorenzo Nalin & Edgar Perez-Medina, 2023. "Current External Challenges to the Economic Expansion of Emerging Markets," Working Papers Series inetwp201, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    19. Philipp Semenchuk & Christoph Plutzar & Thomas Kastner & Sarah Matej & Giorgio Bidoglio & Karl-Heinz Erb & Franz Essl & Helmut Haberl & Johannes Wessely & Fridolin Krausmann & Stefan Dullinger, 2022. "Relative effects of land conversion and land-use intensity on terrestrial vertebrate diversity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    20. Magacho, Guilherme & Espagne, Etienne & Godin, Antoine & Mantes, Achilleas & Yilmaz, Devrim, 2023. "Macroeconomic exposure of developing economies to low-carbon transition," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    21. Jason Hickel, 2019. "Is it possible to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries?," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 18-35, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kemp-Benedict, Eric, 2026. "A research framework for ecological macroeconomics," Working Paper Series 03/2026, Post-Growth Economics Network (PEN).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Valdecantos, Sebastian, 2025. "The green transition dilemma: The impossible (?) quest for prosperity of South American economies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    2. Tausch, Luca & Althouse, Jeffrey, 2025. "Ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) as a multi-tiered hierarchy: Investigating the interdependence of global and domestic environmental inequalities to explain China's rise," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    3. Magacho, Guilherme & Brancher, Marco & Tausch, Luca, 2026. "Low carbon transition's macroeconomic impacts in Latin America," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    4. Godé, Lukas & Vatn, Arild & Gómez-Baggethun, Erik, 2026. "Unequal exchange of labour and global justice: Principles for a fair international distribution of work," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    5. Fevereiro, José Bruno R.T. & Lowe, Benjamin H., 2025. "Macroeconomic implications for the Global South of a green transition in the Global North," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    6. Qiliang Mao & Xianzhuang Mao, 2021. "Cultural barriers, institutional distance, and spatial spillovers: Evidence from regional industrial evolution in China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 1440-1481, September.
    7. Enrico Bergamini & Georg Zachmann, 2020. "Exploring EU’s Regional Potential in Low-Carbon Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-28, December.
    8. Dam, Alje van & Frenken, Koen, 2022. "Variety, complexity and economic development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    9. Diogo Ferraz & Fernanda P. S. Falguera & Enzo B. Mariano & Dominik Hartmann, 2021. "Linking Economic Complexity, Diversification, and Industrial Policy with Sustainable Development: A Structured Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-29, January.
    10. Olimpia Neagu, 2019. "The Link between Economic Complexity and Carbon Emissions in the European Union Countries: A Model Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-27, August.
    11. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "Reprint of The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    12. Koch, Philipp, 2021. "Economic complexity and growth: Can value-added exports better explain the link?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    13. Alcalá, Francisco & Solaz, Marta, 2018. "International Relocation of Production and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 13422, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    14. Vu, Trung V., 2020. "Economic complexity and health outcomes: A global perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    15. Patrick Herron & Aashish Mehta & Cong Cao & Timothy Lenoir, 2016. "Research diversification and impact: the case of national nanoscience development," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 629-659, November.
    16. Corsi, G. & Guarino, R. & Muñoz-Ulecia, E. & Grande, U. & Buonocore, E. & Sapio, A. & Franzese, P.P., 2026. "Has “Ecological Economics” betrayed its roots? Revealing its state, internal tensions and evolution through a multi-level and multi-scale bibliometric assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    17. Viktor Stojkoski & Zoran Utkovski & Ljupco Kocarev, 2016. "The Impact of Services on Economic Complexity: Service Sophistication as Route for Economic Growth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-29, August.
    18. Tom Broekel & Lars Mewes, 2017. "Analyzing the impact of R&D policy on regional diversification," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1726, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Sep 2017.
    19. Jeroen Content & Nicola Cortinovis & Koen Frenken & Jacob Jordaan, 2022. "The roles of KIBS and R&D in the industrial diversification of regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 68(1), pages 29-64, February.
    20. Lackner, Teresa & Fierro, Luca E. & Mellacher, Patrick, 2025. "Opinion dynamics meet agent-based climate economics: An integrated analysis of carbon taxation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C67 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Input-Output Models
    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • F64 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Environment
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:242:y:2026:i:c:s0921800925003908. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.