Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 112, Part 5, 20 January 2016, Pages 4890-4895
Journal of Cleaner Production

Letter to the Editor
Reply to Lenzen, 2008, JCLEPRO 16, 2018–2035: input–output analysis for island economies

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.034Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Comprehensive analysis of input–output databases for island states is presented.

  • Substitute tables of large nations are inadequate for small island assessments.

  • MRIO tables are most suitable for the sustainability assessment of island states.

Section snippets

Norfolk Island's input–output table

In 2012, ACIL Tasman constructed an input–output table for Norfolk Island (ACIL Tasman, 2012a). The table demonstrates little inter-regional trade, and high import propensity. Most commodities consumed by Norfolk Islanders are imported from large nations, such as Australia (ANI, 2013). Therefore, imports form a significant part of the Norfolk Island (NI) economy. However, imports are often not represented in great detail for island economies, i.e. information on the origin of imports is usually

Comparison: single-region Norfolk Island IO vs. MRIO

ACIL Tasman calculated the type I and type II output multipliers (Katz, 1980) for Norfolk Island using the 18 × 18 IO table of the island (ACIL Tasman, 2012a). Instead of the businesses that were assessed by Lenzen (2008), I focus here on the output multipliers calculated in the ACIL Tasman report itself, to provide a more directly relevant comparison. I re-calculate the output multipliers for all 18 sectors of the economy using the augmented multi-regional input–output (MRIO) table (Fig. 1). I

Multiplier decomposition

In this section, I undertake multiplicative and additive decomposition showing a number of successive repercussions of the initial final demand. These repercussions are termed “own”, “spillage” and “feedback” effects – “own” signifies the total output within Norfolk Island required to meet the island's final demand, “spillage” measures the immediate import requirements of Norfolk Island from Australia (what “spills over”), and “feedback” shows trade flows that cross the borders between Norfolk

Conclusions

Input–output analysis (IOA) is a well-established technique for assessing the environmental impact of an economic activity. The power of IOA lies in its ability to capture impacts throughout the infinite supply chains. Therefore, it is increasingly being used in the field of Cleaner Production, be it for appraising the sustainability performance of a product, company or even small island states. IOA is based on economic input–output databases, which are readily available for large continental

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Australian Research Council through its Discovery Projects DP0985522 and DP130101293, and by the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources project (NeCTAR) through its Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory. NeCTAR is an Australian Government project conducted as part of the Super Science initiative and financed by the Education Investment Fund. The author thanks Sebastian Juraszek for expertly managing the advanced computation requirements.

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