Environmental Footprint-Shifting Through International Trade

The majority of studies assessing, comparing, and explaining the environmental performance of countries rely on territorial, production-based measures of environmentally relevant behavior and impacts (footprints). The same applies to most local, national, and international environmental policy-making. Such measurement, explanation, and policy-making ignores environmental impacts embodied in traded goods. For instance, around 70-80% of the total environmental footprint of consumption in Switzerland now materializes abroad, whereas, from a territorial/production perspective the country scores at the top of the most widely used environmental performance scores.

Recent research in political science, ecological economics, and life-cycle analysis suggests that international trade tends to increase the disparities between developed and developing countries in terms of natural resource consumption and the environmental impacts associated with it. It offers important insights into the environmental implications of trade. But it tells us very little about how political factors, such as domestic political institutions and national and international trade and environmental policy choices, influence the (re)allocation of environmental burdens in the global economy, and what could be done to mitigate international environmental footprint shifting while maintaining the benefits of international trade.

Our Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) research project 'Environmental Footprint-Shifting Through International Trade: Driving Forces and Policy Options' thus concentrates on: (i) better understanding the driving forces of international environmental footprint shifting; and (ii) studying policy options for mitigating such footprint shifting from a mass public and elite preferences perspective.

Contact: Thomas Bernauer, David Presberger