Grantham Scholar Eunice Oppon publishes on ecologically unequal exchange through trade. Her paper’s focus is on supply chains between the UK and Africa.
Keep reading to see Eunice’s explanation of her paper.
Ever wondered about the environmental impacts we deposit in another country by locally consuming goods produced from that country? My paper shows that through trade, a country can ‘clean up’ its environment at the expense of countries it trades with.
Because environmental impacts continue to rise, more research is needed to understand underlying causes. Further, the production of goods and services is becoming increasingly global. Currently, countries rely on each other through trade. So we need to have a way to look at how environmental burden shifts from one country to another.
Responding to this need, my paper sets out to look at trade between African countries and the UK.
I used a multi-regional input-output (MRIO) framework to trace sectorial-level flows. One of my findings was that 27 African countries suffer from an imbalance of ecological exchanges. Especially in carbon, land and water use.
Results of this study have implications for both environmental and trade policies’ issue of fairness in environmental responsibility. And for conservation of biodiversity.
Read the full paper: Modelling Multi-regional Ecological Exchanges: The Case of UK and Africa. It is published in Ecological Economics,
Edited by Claire Moran.