EIPOT Final Project Report - Stockholm Environment Institute

ERA-NET SKEP Project EIPOT (www.eipot.eu)
“Development of a methodology for the assessment of global environmental impacts of traded goods and services”
The following criteria should be considered by modellers when choosing SUTs or SIOTs:
• Frequency of publication: in most cases SUTs are published more frequently than SIOTs and are
more up to date, with a time lag of only one to three years.
• Level of sectoral disaggregation: SUTs often have a finer sector disaggregation than SIOTs. The
sector breakdown for products in particular is often considerably higher in SUTs. However, some
NSOs choose to publish aggregated information only or suppress data for confidentiality reasons.
In these cases, the supply tables from Eurostat may provide more detailed information and can be
used instead (the UK is one such example, see Wiedmann et al. 2008b).
• Flexibility: arranging data in SUT blocks in an MRIO allows the user to associate physical
information, such as resource use or environmental pressures, to industries and commodities. This
allows a wider range of policy and research questions to be addressed. One important issue for
hybridisation is the fact that information on production processes can more readily be associated
with the original information on supply and use than with altered SIOT data.
• Quality of information: SIOTs produced by statistical offices contain superior information on coproduction,
as they are normally produced with a hybrid technology assumption based on primary
financial information at the firm level. Supply matrices are often restricted by confidentiality which is
reflected in crossed-out cell values and/or a higher sector aggregation. On the other hand they
reveal valuable information on co-production.
• Consistency: Supra-national databases such as those from Eurostat, OECD or GTAP adhere to a
standardised, consistent format which allows for simple direct comparisons. Whilst Eurostat reports
in both SUT and SIOT format, OECD and GTAP report symmetric tables only.
In the FP-7-EU project EXIOPOL, both SUT and IOT play a central role. While analysis is performed
using SIOTs, national SUTs provide the foundation for constructing symmetric tables. Environmental
extensions are added in various ways to the SUTs (related to products and industries). SUTs (which
can be rectangular) are then linked via the trade of products (Bouwmeester and Oosterhaven 2008).
This results in multi-regional, environmentally extended SUTs which in turn are transformed into
various types of SIOTs (Rueda-Cantuche et al. 2009).
The approach taken in EXIOPOL appears to be comprehensive and feasible. Certainly, the
construction of IOTs out of SUTs is time-consuming. However, once this procedure has been carried
out, it is far easier to repeat it to include additional years.
5.1.2 Data sources for environmental data
European data
Most environmental accounts in Europe follow the Dutch NAMEA perspective (de Haan and Keuning
1996) where all environmental data are compiled per industry as in the SUTs. This means that all
environmental variables are a direct satellite account to the national accounts and to economic
activities of industries and that the same system borders, classifications and definitions are used.
Some environmentally relevant economic activities occur in the final demand part of the IO tables –
private transport and housing – and are also included.
Normally, energy statistics are used as the basis for compiling and allocating emission data over
industries and final demand. Thus, there is consistency between energy use per fuel and emissions to
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