Locating pressures on water, energy and land resources across global supply chains

Measures which address the degradation and over-exploitation of natural resources are urgently needed, in individual countries and globally. However, the extraction and use of natural resources is highly interconnected, spatially and sectorally, within a complex web of interactions and feedbacks. Conventional resource footprinting does not reveal how pressures on natural resources are distributed across country and sector supply networks. Within this study pressures across the global water, energy and land (WEL) system are located within the supply networks of 189 countries and 24 global sectors. Pathways of water, energy and land use are found to be mainly indirect, arising from country and sector resource dependencies on immediate (Scope 2) and upstream (Scope 3) producers in their supply network. However, the distribution of these pressures is found to exhibit a high level of variation within and between national and sectoral supply networks and resource systems. Such differences in the resource pressure profile of countries and sectors is scarcely recognised by existing modelling approaches or supplier reporting guidelines, but is of major consequence for the study and management of pressures across the WEL system. If measures are not taken to extend accountability for the indirect pressures imposed across the WEL system, the resource burden of consumption will be greatly mismanaged.