Environmental performance indices, family types and consumption patterns

摘要

During the last decade there has been an increasing focus on the importance of family lifestyle for the sustainable development of household consumption. In order to evaluate the relation between the consumption pattern of various household types and their environmental performance, we combine national consumer survey statistics, input-output tables, energy flow matrices, various types of emissions and associated environmental effects into an integrated modelling framework. Using this integrated assessment system, it is possible to relate differences in household types to differences in private consumption and again to differences in environmental performance. Environmental performance is evaluated using environmental effect indices, weighting various types of emissions in a global warming potential index, an acidification potential index, and a photochemical oxidation potential index. Subsequently, using DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis), we use these weighted environmental effects indices to form one environmental performance index. DEA analysis is a non-parametric production frontier approach, measuring environmental efficiency in consumption and production. This type of analysis has not been carried out for any country before. The study benefits from recent and detailed data on production sectors, commodities, energy types, environmental effects and household characteristics. In this paper, we highlight results based on our previous and ongoing research. The studies show that different family types have different environmental performances.