Global pastureland use as reflected in inter-regional supply chain

Pastureland used for livestock grazing is globally much bigger than arable land. This study investigates the pastureland use embedded in global supply chains by using multi-regional systems input-output anlysis, tracing embodied pastureland use from source of exploitation to sink of final consumption in the global economy. The world's pastureland resources is shown reallocated through the supply chain mainly to the four major economies: EU, the United States, China, and Japan. These four economies are responsible for driving more than half of the global pastureland exploitation. Major supply chains responsible for the global reallocation of pastureland use include the cattle supply chain from Other Asia & Pacific to the United States, China, and Japan, and the cattle supply chain from Africa to EU and the Middle East. This paper demonstrates the nature and scale of the global reallocation of pastureland resources through the supply chain, highlighting the fact that the global shift of pastureland use from nature-based to economic-based may exacerbate ecological inequity between world regions. It is proposed that future policies and regulations should encourage sustainability goals not only on a regional level but on a global scale, finding pathways to sustainable and equitable livestock production by inter-regional collaboration.

Global spatio-temporal change assessment in interregional water stress footprint in China by a high resolution MRIO model

Developing effective strategies to alleviate increasing water stress in China requires an understanding of how consumption and production drive water stress footprints (WSF) at a high resolution and multiple spatial and temporal scales. However, current Chinese multi-regional input-output (CMRIO) models have limited resolution. Here, we build a high-resolution international MRIO model covering 31 Chinese provinces, 163 sectors, to address this issue, and then analyze the impact of changes in China's interprovincial and international trade patterns on the WSF from 2012 to 2017. We find that China's water stress embodied in inter-provincial trade has increased year after year, to 5606 km³ H₂O-eq in 2017, exceeding 50 % of the total domestic footprint. Domestic water stress transfer is most apparent in the outsourcing of water stress from eastern coastal regions to Central and Western regions, with the top interregional supply chain paths mainly associated with the demand of processed rice and tobacco products. China has transformed into a net exporter of water stress in 2017, with water stress exports to developing countries accounting for 54 % of total exports, up from 51 % in 2012. With deepening globalization, trade between China and developing countries has boosted bilateral economic development, while also exacerbating water stress in China. In addition to agricultural cultivation, industrial products such as plastics and steel exported to meet international industries further contribute to water stress in Northern China. Further identify hotspots of water stress consumption is needed to prioritize actions to relieve regional water stress in a more effective manner, and our study can provide key information.

The future development and restructuring of the international shipping industry: Conference report

With the worldwide spread of the global Coronavirus (COVID-19), the shipping industry has played an essential and irreplaceable role in combating the effects of the pandemic, promoting a trade-led economic recovery and maintaining the stability of industrial supply chains. The North Bund Forum advocated jointly promoting the continuous innovation and wide application of green low-carbon technologies and effectively implementing the reduction strategies of global greenhouse gas emission, thereby contributing to the creation of a safe, smooth and green global supply chain. With the epidemic under control worldwide, the international shipping industry has also ushered in a new development cycle and growth opportunities, which brings new strategic opportunities for the development of Shanghai International Shipping Center. Shanghai will accelerate the building of the world's first-class shipping center characterized as convenient and efficient, fully functional, open and integrated, green and intelligent. The forum is intended as a platform for exchanging ideas on major issues in global shipping, for incubating governance rules and norms of the international shipping industry, for releasing the latest policies and regulations in China and the world, and for showcasing the Shanghai International Shipping Center.

Integrating the inter- and intra-annual dynamic features of capital into environmental footprint assessment: Revisiting China's greenhouse gas footprints, 1995-2015

Assessments of the displacement of pollution emissions or other resources through trade attribute local production to remote consumers, yielding environmental footprints for the respective regions. Recently, the previously neglected temporal dimension of capital goods-built up in the past and continuously serving production activities in the future-has received increasing attention in environmental footprint assessments. Based on an inter-annual dynamic capital-endogenised multi-regional input-output model, this study further integrates the intra-annual dynamic features of capital production and consumption. We quantify the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions embodied in China's capital consumption over the past two decades and assign this part of GHG emissions into finished goods and services over time. Our results show that China's GHG footprint in 2015 would be 7 Gt if capital-related GHG emissions were considered. This figure is 28% higher than the GHG footprints of China's final consumption estimated by conventional consumption-based accounting (CBA) and 41% lower than that of China's final demand estimated by conventional CBA. Overall, around 8% of GHG footprints would be overestimated if we do not consider the intra-annual dynamic feature of capital in the assessment. The inter-annual allocation shows that the capital-related GHGs of China's final consumption emitted on average in the last six years, which is still increasing owing to the long lifespans of capital assets. In light of the synergies among capital development, environmental sustainability, and human needs satisfaction, it is vital to uphold economic and environmental efficiency in capital development decision-making.

The impacts of international trade on global greenhouse gas emissions: A thought experiment based on a novel no-trade analysis

Trade has been substantially influencing regional economic development, environmental sustainability, and human well-being. Enabled by the decomposition analysis, pollution haven hypothesis or "no-trade" scenarios (NTSs), the effects of trade on global/national social-economic-environmental development have been revealed. However, major limitations (e.g., using with-trade economic structures or neglecting price differences) existed in previous studies, and thus made the previous assessments of trade's effects unsatisfactorily. This study develops a novel NTS that addresses the existing limitations, and further applies it to estimate the effect of trade on global economic development and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We show that current international trade benefits the global economic growth but with a consequence of more GHG emissions compared with the NTS. The hypothetical production in small countries (e.g., Luxembourg or Japan) would be more constrained by the production factors (e.g., land) under the NTS, compared with those factor-endowment countries (e.g., the United States or India). For country-specific analysis, we find that today's developed countries would have a substantial increase in their GHG emissions of clothing- and service-related products under the NTS, whereas countries with net-export (e.g., China or Brazil) would have less GHG emissions under the NTS. Enhancing future global collaborations is vital, especially for small or resource-deficient economies, if they are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Global Competition in the Lithium-Ion Battery Supply Chain: A Novel Perspective for Criticality Analysis

With the accelerated pace of energy transition, competition in the lithium-ion battery (LIB) supply chain is intensifying across a wide scope of countries. In order to understand the potential risk derived from the competitors, this study quantifies the global competition intensities of 15 categories of LIB-related commodities, which has not been well characterized by previous criticality analysis studies. On the basis of the collected data and designed treatment techniques, the "competition index" is developed for this purpose. Here, we show that lithium hydroxides, LIBs, and lithium carbonates were the focal points of global competition in the LIB supply chain in 2019, and there will be more competition for lithium hydroxide in the future. The competition for commodities related to LIBs among Korea, Japan, and the USA are the most notable. Such insights into the global conflict potential of LIB-related commodities provide a reference for underlying competitors and corresponding transition strategies of regional industrial structures. The index developed by us complements the criticality analysis framework, which could be expanded to assess the criticality of materials relevant with other industries.

The impact of R&D and innovation on global supply chain transition: GTAP analysis on Japan's public R&D investment

Policymaking for science, technology, and innovation (R&D) is stepping into a new era in the twenty-first century within a highly integrated production network, making it more challenging to capture the impact of R&D investment from an evidence-based approach. To unfold the paradox of the R&D spillover effect spared in the global supply chain, we use computable general equilibrium model with the GTAP database v10 to analyze the impact of Japan's public R&D investment to the world focus on key sectors of global supply chain, namely chemical and pharmaceutical, electronic equipment, machinery, and transportation equipment to examine its output, external trades, and welfare. The productivity parameters triggered by public R&D investment are calibrated from the SciREX Policymaking Intelligent Assistance System-Economic Simulator (SPIAS-e). The simulation results show significant increase in Japan's output and export for chemical and pharmaceutical, electronic equipment, and transportation equipment. The GDP growth was stimulated by 0.6% and substantial welfare improvement by USD 78,000 million, while other countries such as Malaysia and Taiwan by 0.4-0.6%. In contrast, the economic indicators of China reveal a negative impact, implying a structural change in the composition of the production network. It is notable to see a higher economic integration of Oceania within the region through its vibrant production and trades. The study provides comprehensive global analysis on production networks and insights for evaluating the R&D investment spillover effects.

Interorganizational cooperation and supplier performance in high-technology supply chains

Never in history have global supply-chain relationships in high-tech electronics firms been more sophisticated, complicated, and almost always tied in some major aspect to China. This research examines how interorganizational (IO) cooperation impacts performance and what role relationship learning and information technology (IT) integration play in the value-creation process for Chinese suppliers in business-to-business (B2B) supply chains. We examine this issue using data collected from face-to-face interviews with supply chain managers and executives from 1,004 Chinese high-tech electronic component suppliers. The results strongly support the hypothesis that IO cooperation improves a supplier's performance regarding both its major customer and overall marketplace. Relationship learning and IT integration are important mediating variables that drive performance. The strongest effect in our study was the influence of IO cooperation on relationship learning. A unique aspect of this study is that it focuses on a large sample of a specific supplier type-high-tech Chinese suppliers. This, combined with the fact that the sampled companies were involved in manufacturing 13 different product groups, greatly increases the generalizability of the results.

Carbon emissions embodied in the global supply chain: Intermediate and final trade imbalances

By differentiating intermediate trade from final trade, this paper combines typical statistics for the world economy in 2012 to explore the transfer of embodied carbon emissions via the global supply chain and the related trade imbalance. The emission transfer embodied in interregional trade is in magnitude around 40% of global direct carbon emissions. The global intermediate trade volume of embodied carbon emissions is estimated to be 2.3 times as much as the final trade volume. While Mainland China obtains a considerable economic trade surplus, its carbon trade deficit is about twice the carbon trade surplus of the United States. Mainland China's final trade deficit is around 1.2 times as much as its intermediate trade deficit of embodied carbon emissions. EU27, the United States, ASEAN and Japan serve as the major contributors to China's intermediate and final trade deficits. For the United States, its intermediate carbon trade surplus is almost equal to its final trade surplus. The United States gains a carbon surplus with most of its trading partners in both intermediate and final trades. A future scenario analysis in terms of carbon emission projection is conducted. While the direct and embodied carbon emissions of the United States and Japan are estimated to change slightly from 2012 to 2040, India's carbon emissions are projected to experience a twofold increase during the period. In the long term, though with ups and downs, the economic globalization will be inevitably moving forward, leading to a highly sliced-up global supply chain and increasingly delicate regional specialization as well as frequent intermediate trade between regions. It is suggested that nations and regions should follow this trend and adapt themselves to the global value chain by carefully assessing their roles in intermediate and final trades in terms of both currency and embodied carbon emissions.

Evolution of China's water footprint and virtual water trade: A global trade assessment

Water embodied in traded commodities is important for water sustainability management. This study provides insight into China's water footprint and virtual water trade using three specific water named Green, Blue and Grey. A multi-region input-output analysis at national and sectoral analysis levels from the years 1995 to 2009 is conducted. The evolution and position of China's virtual water trade across a global supply chain are explored through cluster analysis. The results show that China represented 11.2% of the global water footprint in 1995 and 13.6% in 2009. The green virtual water is the largest of China's exports and imports. In general, China is a net exporter of virtual water during this time period. China mainly imports virtual water from the USA, India and Brazil, and mainly exports virtual water to the USA, Japan and Germany. The agriculture sector and the food sector represent the sectors with both the largest import and export virtual water quantities. China's global virtual water trade network has been relatively stable from 1995 to 2009. China has especially close relationships with the USA, Indonesia, India, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Trade relations, resource endowment and supply-demand relationships may play key roles in China's global virtual water footprint network rather than geographical location. Finally, policy implications are proposed for China's long term sustainable water management and for global supply chain management in general.

Influences of reverse outsourcing on green technological progress from the perspective of a global supply chain

As a newly appeared trade mode in recent years, reverse outsourcing has made a great impact on traditional trade modes. This paper researched the influences of reverse outsourcing on green technological progress from the perspective of a global supply chain by using micro-data of enterprises. It worked out the rate of green technological progress from two innovative concepts: potential production technology and practical production technology. The empirical analysis results indicated that reverse outsourcing stimulates, and enterprise size and ownership type potentially affects, green technological progress. State-owned or foreign enterprises with high income levels would pay more attention to environmental protection, energy saving, and emission reduction, while small and micro enterprises with low incomes would choose to ignore environmental protection.

Global reverse supply chain design for solid waste recycling under uncertainties and carbon emission constraint

The emergence of concerns over environmental protection, resource conservation as well as the development of logistics operations and manufacturing technology has led several countries to implement formal collection and recycling systems of solid waste. Such recycling system has the benefits of reducing environmental pollution, boosting the economy by creating new jobs, and generating income from trading the recyclable materials. This leads to the formation of a global reverse supply chain (GRSC) of solid waste. In this paper, we investigate the design of such a GRSC with a special emphasis on three aspects; (1) uncertainty of waste collection levels, (2) associated carbon emissions, and (3) challenges posed by the supply chain's global aspect, particularly the maritime transportation costs and currency exchange rates. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to integrate the three above-mentioned important aspects in the design of a GRSC. We have used mixed integer-linear programming method along with robust optimization to develop the model which is validated using a sample case study of e-waste management. Our results show that using a robust model by taking the complex interactions characterizing global reverse supply chain networks into account, we can create a better GRSC. The effect of uncertainties and carbon constraints on decisions to reduce costs and emissions are also shown.

Global land-use change hidden behind nickel consumption

Economic growth is associated with a rapid rise in the use of natural resources within the economy, and has potential environmental impacts at local and/or global scales. In today's globalized economy, each country has indirect flows supporting its economic activities, and natural resource consumption through supply chains influences environmental impacts far removed from the place of consumption. One way to control environmental impacts associated with consumption of natural resources is to identify the consumption of natural resources and the associated environmental impacts through the global supply chain. In this study, we used a global link input-output model (GLIO, a hybrid multiregional input-output model) to detect the linkages between national nickel consumption and mining-associated global land-use changes. We focused on nickel, whose global demand has risen rapidly in recent years, as a case study. The estimated area of land-use change around the world caused by nickel mining in 2005 was 1.9km², and that induced by Japanese final demand for nickel was 0.38km². Our modeling also revealed that the areas of greatest land-use change associated with nickel mining were concentrated in only a few countries and regions far removed from the place of consumption. For example, 57.7% of the world's land-use changes caused by nickel mining were concentrated in five countries in 2005: Australia, 13.7%; Russia, 12.9%; Indonesia, 12.5%; New Caledonia, 10.4%; and Colombia, 8.2%. The mining-associated land-use change induced by Japanese final demand accounted for 19.5% of the total area affected by land-use change caused by nickel mining. The top three countries accounted for 70.6% (Indonesia: 47.0%, New Caledonia: 16.0%, and Australia: 7.7%), and the top five accounted for 82.4% (the Philippines: 7.5%, and Canada: 4.3%, in addition to the top three countries and regions).