Methods & data sources
This section introduces the methodology underlying the SCP-HAT and provides detailed information on the data sources used.
methoDs
how do we analyse hotspots?
The Hotspot Analysis Tool for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP-HAT) combines in a single framework national environmental and social data (i.e. territorial accounts) with trade information for the estimation of supply-wide environmental pressure and impact indicators (i.e. footprints).
For the estimation of footprint-type indicators, two approaches are applied: Environmentally extended multi-regional input-output (EE-MRIO) analysis and Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA).
Domestic data on pressures (e.g. material extraction) and impacts (e.g. deforestation) expressed in physical units (also called ‘satellite accounts’) are linked to monetary data for transactions between economic sectors and final consumers in different countries.
This approach allows to trace all the pressures and impacts occurring at the different stages of even very complex supply chains, and to allocate them to the country of final consumption or sectoral production. This type of analysis is used to identify hotspots of unsustainable consumption and production.
Using the same methodology and homogenous datasets for all countries allows to compare different environmental categories, pressures and impacts, domestic and footprint perspectives, and countries against each other. Note that due to methodological differences and data harmonisation, the reported results may differ from the data reported by statistical institutions.
For guidance on how to use the SCP-HAT use our explanatory videos or the User Handbook. For more information on methods and data, check out the technical documentation.
Concept figure: The SCP-HAT tracks the flows of goods and services, linking domestic pressures (occurring in the national environment) with foreign consumption (in countries A to K), as well as national consumption with pressures on the environment abroad.
To analyse hotspots of (un)sustainable consumption and production, two analytical perspectives are applied by the SCP-HAT: domestic production (“territorial approach”) and consumption footprint (“footprint approach”).
In the domestic production perspective, environmental pressures and impacts are illustrated for the country where they physically occur. For example, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced or raw materials extracted in the domestic economy.
In the consumption footprint perspective, environmental pressures and impacts are allocated to the country where the final consumption of products and services occurs. The consumption footprint looks across the whole supply chain of goods, including all activities occurring in- and outside of the country. For example, accounting for land used within and beyond national borders in the production of foodstuff consumed in a certain country.
methoDs
SCP-HAT at a glance
DATA
DATA USED
The SCP-HAT tool incorporates four types of data: input-output tables linked via monetary trade information, “satellite accounts” containing data on environmental pressure, socio-economic data, and data on environmental impacts from life cycle impact assessments. To the extent possible, the data is open source and retrieved from internationally recognised data sources.
Input-Output data
Name: GLORIA (Global Resource Input Output Assessment) database
Link: https://ielab.info/analyse/GLORIA
Definition: Input-output data is compiled by national statistical agencies based on national economic statistics. The Global Resource Input Output (GLORIA) database is a multi-region input-output (MRIO) database that provides a time series of high geographical resolution of input-output tables with matching environmental and social satellite accounts for 164 countries and a homogenous 120×120 sector disaggregation available for all countries.
Modules/Sections:
Country profile (Module 1): all sub-sections
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Environmental pressures
Name: UN Environment International Resource Panel Global Material Flows Database
Link: http://www.resourcepanel.org/global-material-flows-database
Definition: Raw material extraction is the exploitation of biomass, fossil fuels and minerals for the production of goods and services directly from the natural environment. This includes activities such as fishing, mining, harvesting, drilling, etc.
UN Environment International Resource Panel Global Material Flows Database presents direct and consumption-based material flow indicators for seven world regions and for individual countries. It covers two different aggregations of material categories data on absolute extraction and consumption as well as per-capita and per- US%-values. For the SCP-HAT the data on material extraction per country is used.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Sustainable use of raw materials
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: EDGAR v.7.0 database (Joint Research Centre & Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency)
Link: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset_ghg70
Definition: A greenhouse gas is an atmospheric gas that absorbs and re-emits heat and keeps the planet’s atmosphere warmer than it otherwise would be. The Kyoto Protocol (Annex A) covers the following six greenhouse gases: Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).
The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) provides a data set, which combines several published datasets to create a comprehensive set of greenhouse gas emissions pathways for every country and the main greenhouse gases tackled by the Kyoto Protocol (CO2, CH4, and N2O). It covers the years 1970 to 2021, all member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and most non-UNFCCC nations as well.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAOSTAT / Global Forest Resources Assessment)
Link: http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data
https://fra-data.fao.org/WO/fra2020/home/
Definition: Land use is the total arrangements, activities, and inputs that people undertake in a certain land cover. The SCP-HAT currently covers agricultural and forestry land use, and built-up land. This land use relates only to land occupation in the context of Life Cycle Assessment.
The FAOSTAT Land Use domain includes broad categories of land for agricultural and forestry activities such as arable land, permanent crops, and pastures. The FAOSTAT Crop Production domain includes annual land use for a large number of individual crops (annual and permanent). The two datasets are combined to determine land use for each of the IRP sectors, while ensuring that aggregates add up to the Land Use domain data. Data is available from 1961 onwards for more than 200 countries and territories. The FAOSTAT Land Use domain also contains data on planted forest area, which is combined with data on production and multiple-use forests from the FAO Global Forest Resource Assessments to derive the areas of extensive and intensive forest use. The Forest Resource Assessments provide data every five or ten years from 1990 for most countries.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Sustainable land use
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: EDGAR v6.1 database (Joint Research Centre & Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency)
Link: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset_ap61
Definition: When harmful or excessive quantities of substances including gases, particulates, and biological molecules are introduced into Earth’s atmosphere, air pollution occurs. The EDGAR database covers four different pollutants: NH3, NOx, PM2.5, SO2, which are used in the SCP-HAT.
Modules: Country Profile (Module 1): Air pollution and related health impacts
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: ETH water footprint data based on Pfister and Bayer 2011, WaterGAP data (Flörke et al., 2013)
Link: High resolution data: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/brn4xm47jk/3; Time series: https://zenodo.org/record/3994795
Definition: The SCP-HAT presents data on national blue water consumption. Blue water is defined as water stemming from surface water (e.g. rivers or lakes) or groundwater. Water consumption is defined as the difference between overall water withdrawals and direct return flows. Blue water consumption hence encompasses water withdrawn from surface water or groundwater that is either incorporated into products or evaporated during either the growth period of a crop or the production process of goods. The data from Pfister et al. (2011) representing production patterns in the year 2000 was matched to country and sector resolution in the way described by Lutter et al. (2016). Time series are developed based on a regionalized EXIOBASE 3 version (Cabernard et al., 2020).
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Water consumption and scarcity
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: International Energy Agency
Link: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-product/world-energy-balances
Definition: The SCP-HAT includes data on the production of primary energy from a wide range of energy carriers. 21 different energy products were selected and allocated to specific sectors in the global input-output table. The products were then grouped into six groups to allow easier communication in the SCP-HAT: (1) Coal and peat, (2) Oil and natural gas, (3) Nuclear, (4) Solid biofuels, (5) Captured energy (e.g., Hydro, Geothermal, Solar), and (6) Heat.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Sustainable energy use
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAOSTAT)
Link: http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data
Definition: Marine environments can be impacted by overabundance of nitrogen, which is deposited in oceans from the air, via direct run-off or via rivers. NH3 and NOx Emissions to air as well as nitrogen and nitrates that leach or run off from agricultural systems both contribute to marine eutrophication. Air emission data is the same as used in the air pollution data set. Leached nitrogen information is derived from FAO data for the Climate change emissions domain, which includes data on nitrogen use and nitrogen leaching.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Water pollution and related impacts
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Environmental impacts (LCIA factors)
Name: ReCiPe (RIVM, CML, PRé Consultants and Radboud University Nijmegen)
Link: https://www.rivm.nl/en/Topics/L/Life_Cycle_Assessment_LCA/Downloads
Definition: ReCiPe is a a harmonised life cycle impact assessment method at midpoint and endpoint level, which translates emissions and resource extractions into a limited number of environmental impact scores by means of so-called “characterization factors”. The method contributes to a better understanding of the environmental impact of goods, services, and processes, and quantifies life cycle impacts on human health, ecosystem services, and natural resources.
The midpoint characterization factor for mineral resource scarcity is Surplus Ore Potential (SOP). It expresses the average extra amount of ore to be produced in the future due to the extraction of 1 kg of a mineral resource X, considering all future production (R) of that mineral resource relative to the average extra amount of ore produced in the future. The indicator is expressed relative to copper in units of kg Cu-equivalent.
Modules/Sections:
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: Global guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment indicators, UNEP Life Cycle Initiative
Link: https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/applying-lca/lcia-cf/
Definition: Anthropogenic emissions contribute to climate change, and climate change has an impact on human beings.
Two impact categories are used to better reflect the complexity of climate change: (1) Short-term environmental and human health consequences from the rate of temperature change (e.g., lack of human and ecosystem adaptation) are quantified with the Global Warming Potential (GWP). It is a measure of the heat absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the period of 100 years; (2) The effect of long-term temperature rise (e.g., temperature rise, sea level rise) is measured with the Global Temperature Potential (GTP). GTP quantifies the rise in average temperature over the next 100 years due to emission of a GHG.
Modules/Sections: Country Profile (Module 1): Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: Global guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment indicators, UNEP Life Cycle Initiative
Link: https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/applying-lca/lcia-cf/
Definition: Biodiversity impacts are described by the indicator “potential species loss due to land use”. This indicator is estimated by applying characterization factors and quantifies changes in species richness due to land transformation and occupation. The results are expressed as “Potentially Disappeared Fraction of Species” (PDF) for one year. The characterization factors currently applied are country-level average factors for global species loss due to land occupation.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Sustainable land use
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: ReCiPe (RIVM, CML, PRé Consultants and Radboud University Nijmegen)
Link: https://www.rivm.nl/en/Topics/L/Life_Cycle_Assessment_LCA/Downloads
Definition: Human health impacts are covered in life cycle impact assessment by means of estimating health impacts caused by respiratory inorganics (particulate matter). Human health impacts are defined at the population level, i.e. not in relation to individuals or susceptible sub-populations. The metric is Disability – Adjusted Life Years (DALY) at endpoint. Average characterization factors are used for each country.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Air pollution and health impacts
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: Available WAter Remaining (AWARE)
Link: https://wulca-waterlca.org/aware/what-is-aware/
Definition: AWARE is a midpoint indicator representing the relative Available WAter REmaining per area in a watershed, after the demand of humans and aquatic ecosystems has been met. It builds on the assumption that the less water remaining available per area, the more likely another user will be deprived. The indicator is available at the watershed and monthly levels, as well as at the country level, averaged for agricultural water use and non-agricultural water use (reflecting typical consumption patterns and locations of the sectors within a country). For crop production, the watershed indicator was applied to the high spatial resolution water consumption in the SCP-HAT, while the other sectors used the country-specific coefficients.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Water consumption and scarcity
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: Global guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment indicators, UNEP Life Cycle Initiative
Link: https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/applying-lca/lcia-cf/
Definition: Eutrophication is the effect that an overabundance of particular nutrients has on aquatic environments. If the nutrient input in aquatic system exceeds the nutrient assimilation capacity, ecosystem structure and functioning may change. Nitrogen flows impact marine environments and may result in eutrophication – where N-loads result in excessive algal bloom. This process can lead to ecological degradation and species loss due to oxygen depletion in the body of water, following bacterial degradation of the algae. The indicator reflects the severity of marine eutrophication potential in nitrogen-equivalents.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): Water pollution and related impacts
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Socio-economic indicators
Name: The World Bank Group
Link: http://databank.worldbank.org/data/home.aspx
Definition: Total population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship – except for refugees who are not permanently settled.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): all sub-sections
Hotspots identification (Module 2): all sub-sections
Name: The World Bank Group
Link: http://databank.worldbank.org/data/home.aspx
Definition: Gross Domestic Product is an inflation-adjusted measure that reflects the value of goods and services produced by an economy in a particular year. It is referred to as “constant-price”, using 2015 official exchange rates.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): all sub-sections
Hotspots identification (Module 2): National performance – Sustainability trends
Name: United Nations Development Programme
Link: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data
Definition: The Human Development Index is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and a decent standard of living. The Human Development Index was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): all sub-sections
Hotspots identification (Module 2): National performance – Sustainability trends
Name: INFORM Global Risk Index (GRI)
Link: https://drmkc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/inform-index
Definition: The INFORM Risk Index is a global, open-source risk assessment for humanitarian crises and disasters. It can support decisions about prevention, preparedness, and response. In the SCP-HAT we apply the sub-index “socio-economic vulnerability”. It tries to measure the (in)ability of individuals or households to afford safe and resilient livelihoods and well-being. It is independent from specific hazards and can be linked to prevailing environmental pressures and impacts, and to unsustainable consumption and production in general.
Modules/Sections:
Country Profile (Module 1): all sub-sections
Hotspots identification (Module 2): National performance – Sustainability trends
Name: GLORIA (Global Resource Input Output Assessment) database
Link: https://ielab.info/analyse/GLORIA
Definition: Persons in employment are defined as all those of working age who, during a short reference period, were engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit. They comprise employed persons “at work”, i.e. who worked in a job for at least one hour; and employed persons “not at work” due to temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangements (such as shift work, flextime and compensatory leave for overtime). The SCP-HAT covers employment data differentiating for gender and different levels of skill.
Modules/Sections:
Hotspots identification (Module 2): Sectoral performance – Trends by sector, Sector comparison
Name: GLORIA (Global Resource Input Output Assessment) database
Link: https://ielab.info/analyse/GLORIA
Definition: Value added is obtained from the primary inputs matrices provided in the GLORIA (Global Resource Input Output Assessment) database. These matrices are first gathered from national statistics offices and then balanced with the rest of the components of the MRIO system (intermediate and final outputs and trade data).
Modules/Sections:
Hotspots identification (Module 2): National performance – Environmental trends, Comparative analysis,
Sectoral performance – Trends by sector, Sector comparison