International Industrial Ecology Day 2021
Pilot Global Commons Stewardship Index
The state of the Global Commons is poor and worsening. Conserving and sustainably managing the Global Commons requires sound data and metrics to guide better decisions and improved policies. To aid in addressing this, a Pilot Global Commons Stewardship (GCS) Index that measures country-level impacts on the Global Commons is being launched. This is a joint project of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, and the new University of Tokyo Center for Global Commons.
Using an integrated framework, the Pilot GCS Index tracks countries’ overall impacts on the Global Commons, especially in the areas of climate change, pollution, biodiversity, and natural resource use. The Pilot GCS tracks a country’s environmental impacts within its borders as well as transboundary impacts generated through trade and physical flows. In particular, we use Multi-Regional Input-Output models (MRIOs) to track where international spillovers occur along the supply chains of imported goods. Currently, Eora is used due to its wide country coverage, but EXIOBASE is being explored as well.
To quantify and compare priorities within and across countries, the Pilot GCS Index computes a country’s distance to time-bound targets. We draw on the latest science, internationally agreed targets and relative performance across countries to establish those targets. The Pilot GCS Index focuses on outcome-based measures of environmental impacts rather than planned policies, and uses the most recent data available and works with data providers to reduce lags in publishing new data.
Measuring countries’ impacts on the Global Commons represents major conceptual, methodological, and communication challenges. We anticipate that a sound GCS Index will require several years of iteration and consultations with experts and users. In this spirit, we present here a preliminary Pilot GCS Index for critical review.
Using an integrated framework, the Pilot GCS Index tracks countries’ overall impacts on the Global Commons, especially in the areas of climate change, pollution, biodiversity, and natural resource use. The Pilot GCS tracks a country’s environmental impacts within its borders as well as transboundary impacts generated through trade and physical flows. In particular, we use Multi-Regional Input-Output models (MRIOs) to track where international spillovers occur along the supply chains of imported goods. Currently, Eora is used due to its wide country coverage, but EXIOBASE is being explored as well.
To quantify and compare priorities within and across countries, the Pilot GCS Index computes a country’s distance to time-bound targets. We draw on the latest science, internationally agreed targets and relative performance across countries to establish those targets. The Pilot GCS Index focuses on outcome-based measures of environmental impacts rather than planned policies, and uses the most recent data available and works with data providers to reduce lags in publishing new data.
Measuring countries’ impacts on the Global Commons represents major conceptual, methodological, and communication challenges. We anticipate that a sound GCS Index will require several years of iteration and consultations with experts and users. In this spirit, we present here a preliminary Pilot GCS Index for critical review.
Author(s)
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| T. Reed Miller | University of Maine |
| Zach Wendling | Sustainable Development Solutions Network |
| Dan Esty | Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy |