ABSTRACT Global production chains carry environmental and socioeconomic impacts embodied in each ... more ABSTRACT Global production chains carry environmental and socioeconomic impacts embodied in each traded good and service. Even though labor and energy productivities tend to be higher for domestic production in high-income countries than those in emerging economies, this difference is significantly reduced for consumption, when including imported products to satisfy national demand. The analysis of socioeconomic and environmental aspects embodied in consumption can shed a light on the real level of productivity of an economy, as well as the effects of rising imports and offshoring. This research introduces a consumption-based metric for productivity, in which we evaluate the loss of productivity of developed nations resulting from imports from less-developed economies and offshoring of labor-intensive production. We measure the labor, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions footprints in the European Union's trade with the rest of the world through a multiregional input-output model. We confirm that the labor footprint of European imports is significantly higher than the one of exports, mainly from low-skilled, labor-intensive primary sectors. A high share of labor embodied in exports is commonly associated with low energy productivities in domestic industries. Hence, this reconfirms that the offshoring of production to cheaper and low-skilled, labor-abundant countries offsets, or even reverts, energy efficiency gains and climate-change mitigation actions in developed countries.
As we confront the current environmental crisis, determining the biophysical base (e.g., material... more As we confront the current environmental crisis, determining the biophysical base (e.g., materials, energy,land, and water) of nations has become paramount. With advanced economies benefiting from the importof resource-intensive primary goods originating from poorer parts of the world, especially emergingnations, these are dilapidating their natural capital. Brazil is one of such emerging economies, whosemining and farming activities, propping up its export-led economic growth, exert great pressure on theenvironment. In particular, farming has been shown to have one of the world’s greatest environmentalimpacts, especially as a consequence of land use associated with cattle ranching. Since a nation-wideevaluation of land-use types across the whole sectorial spectrum of the country’s economy is still lacking,we used the most recently available Input–Output Economic Model for Brazil and the Ecological Footprintmethod to identify those economic sectors with the greatest potential for appropriating portions of thenatural world.Our results show that: (i) the biggest chunk of Brazil’s Ecological Footprint is due to its Carbon Footprintand, in particular, emissions from cattle; (ii) only a few economic sectors exhibit high Ecological Footprintvalues, chiefly those belonging to livestock farming and energy production based on fossil fuels; (iii)excluding the soybeans and slaughter sectors, export-oriented sectors have below-average EcologicalFootprint values; and (iv) the percentage of Brazil’s Ecological Footprint due to household consumption(excluding imports) is three times bigger than that attributable to exports, with sectors belonging tolivestock farming contributing the most to such disparity.These results underscore that the environmental impact of the Brazilian economy can be drasticallyreduced by tackling the emission-intensive production processes of a few sectors only and disincentiviz-ing the domestic consumption of a narrow range of products, especially with respect to the livestock segment.
Abstract: The extent to what bad labor conditions across the globe are associated with internatio... more Abstract: The extent to what bad labor conditions across the globe are associated with international trade is unknown. Here, we quantify the bad labor conditions associated with consumption in seven world regions, the “bad labor” footprint. In particular, we analyze how much occupational health damage, vulnerable employment, gender inequality, share of unskilled workers, child labor, and forced labor is associated with the production of internationally traded goods. Our results show that (i) as expected, there is a net flow of bad labor conditions from developing to developed regions; (ii) the production of exported goods in lower income regions contributes to more than half of the bad labor footprints caused by the wealthy lifestyles of affluent regions; (iii) exports from Asia constitute the largest global trade flow measured in the amount bad labor, while exports from Africa carry the largest burden of bad labor conditions per unit value traded and per unit of total labor required; and (IV) the trade of food products stands out in both volume and intensity of bad labor conditions.
Global production chains carry environmental and socioeconomic impacts embodied in each traded go... more Global production chains carry environmental and socioeconomic impacts embodied in each traded good and service. Even though labor and energy productivities tend to be higher for domestic production in high-income countries than those in emerging economies, this difference is significantly reduced for consumption, when including imported products to satisfy national demand. The analysis of socioeconomic and environmental aspects embodied in consumption can shed a light on the real level of productivity of an economy, as well as the effects of rising imports and offshoring. This research introduces a consumption-based metric for productivity, in which we evaluate the loss of productivity of developed nations resulting from imports from less-developed economies and offshoring of labor-intensive production. We measure the labor, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions footprints in the European Union's trade with the rest of the world through a multiregional input-output model. We confirm that the labor footprint of European imports is significantly higher than the one of exports, mainly from low-skilled, labor-intensive primary sectors. A high share of labor embodied in exports is commonly associated with low energy productivities in domestic industries. Hence, this reconfirms that the offshoring of production to cheaper and low-skilled, labor-abundant countries offsets, or even reverts, energy efficiency gains and climate-change mitigation actions in developed countries.
Environmental concerns and the search for climate change mitigation have led to the deployment of... more Environmental concerns and the search for climate change mitigation have led to the deployment of renewable energy technologies (RET) in several countries. The adoption of incentive policies, especially those based on heavy subsides, has motivated the discussion of social and economic benefits brought about by these technologies, mainly on the impact on employment rates. In this context, several studies have been conducted to quantify job creation by RET, concluding that the latter are more labor intensive than traditional fossil fueled technologies. However, results for different assessments vary largely due to distinct methodological approaches, and are frequently highly aggregated. Thus, results are not comparable or applicable to other contexts. Previous studies have failed to quantify the effects of imports and exports of RET equipment in total employment, usually associating employment and installed capacity in the year studied. This study has aimed to address these issues, creating an index for employment quantification based on production, instead of installed, capacity. We have estimated both direct jobs in manufacture, construction, and operation and management, and indirect jobs both in the upstream supply chains of materials and inputs to manufacture of wind turbines and construction of wind farms. We have also performed an assessment of jobs created in wind energy projects which are expected to begin operation in Brazil until 2017. The resulting job potential in Brazil corresponds to13.5 persons-year equivalent for each MW installed between manufacture and first year of operation of a wind power plant, and 24.5 persons-year equivalent over the wind farm lifetime. Results show that major contribution from wind power for job creation are in the construction stage and, despite of the low amount of jobs created in operation and maintenance relative to new installed capacity, those stable jobs stand out as they persist over the entire wind farm's life time.
Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems, Mar 2013
Investments in renewable energy and climate change mitigation go beyond the reduction of greenhou... more Investments in renewable energy and climate change mitigation go beyond the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Secondary benefits include technology transfer, reduction in emissions of other pollutants, and job creation, often called green jobs. It is known that job creation reflects on social, economic, environmental and territorial aspects. Therefore, it can be an indicator of social performance of energy projects. Wind power
has experienced an explosive growth over the past few years, and projects contracted between 2009 and 2011 will increase Brazilian installed capacity by 450% in 2016. This article evaluates the potential consequences of this rapid growth on job creation in Brazil. Jobs were quantified in manufacturing, installation and operation stages, observing national manufacture of major components. Estimated wind power growth will generate
90,000 jobs from 2012 till 2016. Over 74% of the jobs are created in the construction and operation stages, which have high level of local employment, bringing social and economic benefits to the installation sites.
A energia eólica no Brasil passou por um período de lento crescimento, porém, os projetos contrat... more A energia eólica no Brasil passou por um período de lento crescimento, porém, os projetos contratados nos últimos três anos deverão quintuplicar a capacidade instalada. É a tecnologia limpa que mais tem crescido na última década, trazendo benefícios ambientais e sociais para diversos países. Nosso trabalho buscou quantificar a geração de empregos diretos e indiretos pela energia eólica no país. Até 2020, serão gerados 195 mil empregos, e 70% desses são diretos, a maioria na construção civil, com grande potencial para a criação de empregos em localidades rurais. Assim, a energia eólica poderá contribuir decisivamente para o desenvolvimento sustentável do país.
The concern on environmental impacts and the search for climate change mitigation have led many c... more The concern on environmental impacts and the search for climate change mitigation have led many countries on the run to accelerate the development and the deployment of renewable energy technologies. Among those, wind power was recently the most successful technology, having achieved a growth of almost 15 times between 2000 and 2011. The adoption of incentive policies, especially those based on subsides, has led to the discussion of social and environmental benefits brought by this technology, focusing efforts on the assessment of the impacts on employment levels. Several studies have been made to quantify job creation by renewable energy technologies, and the main conclusion has been that they are more labor intensive than traditional fossil fuels technologies. However, the studies differ in methods and assumptions, and results are often published in an aggregated manner, making it difficult to compare the results. There are no studies available applied to the Latin American region. Wind power in Brazil has grown in a slow pace for over a decade. However, in the last three years, the projects contracted should increased wind power installed capacity in almost five times in only five years. This rapid estimated growth demands the assessment of impacts in the employment level. The present dissertation aimed to quantify the job creation potential of wind energy in Brazil. We have quantified not only direct jobs but also indirect jobs created in the Brazilian economy by the demand of inputs. To achieve this goal, we created a model that integrates life cycle assessment, semi-structured interviews, input-output models and scenario building. The obtained results let us affirm that wind energy can offer a significant contribution to job creation in Brazil, creating over 300 thousand job-years until 2020. Direct jobs account for around 70% of total jobs, and major contribution is found to be in the construction stage, which also has high potential to create local jobs in several rural areas. Thus, wind energy has the potential to contribute to sustainable development in Brazil.
Global electricity consumption rose exponentially over the last decades powered by fossil fueled ... more Global electricity consumption rose exponentially over the last decades powered by fossil fueled thermal power plants. In comparison, Brazil relies on large hydroelectric plants to generate most of its electricity. Nevertheless, the share of thermal electricity generation in Brazil has increased because thermal power can balance the seasonality of the hydroelectric based system and is cost competitive. Regardless its great wind potential, the use of this technology in Brazil is still timid. The country had only 835 MW of installed windpower capacity until November 2010, or 0.75% of its total. An aggressive wind power deployment has been constrained by its cost until recently. However, windpower has potential to act as a complementary energy source to hydropower during dry seasons, and its development could displace thermal power plants. This paper aims to quantify potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions and jobs creation in three different scenarios of wind energy development up to 2019. In the baseline scenario, windpower will create over 93,000 jobs and reduce up to 96 million tones of CO2 by 2019. In comparison, a massive windpower deployment scenario, , foresees the reduction of up to 176 million tones of CO2 and the generation of more than 225,000 jobs, most of them in the manufacturing sector. Therefore, wind power is an important alternative for promoting sustainable development in Brazil because it reduces GHG emissions and creates green jobs.
The fragmentation of the African continent into nations with limited economic and political devel... more The fragmentation of the African continent into nations with limited economic and political development and a geographic distribution resulted from years of colonization brought to recent efforts to embrace a regional integration, specially between adjacent states. The energy permits to gain the environmental, social and economical benefits from a more efficient use of resources. The African continent is that is that with the highest rate of population without access to electricity, particularly in the Sub-Sahara Africa. This article aims to evaluate the contribution of the energy infrastructure integration for the growth of access to electricity in the 12 countries of the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP), working since 1995. The study concluded there were gains in efficiency of electricity production and in electrification rates since the operation of the SAPP. Hence, there is yet much more to be done, both in the integration of the electrical systems and in electrification programs.
ABSTRACT Global production chains carry environmental and socioeconomic impacts embodied in each ... more ABSTRACT Global production chains carry environmental and socioeconomic impacts embodied in each traded good and service. Even though labor and energy productivities tend to be higher for domestic production in high-income countries than those in emerging economies, this difference is significantly reduced for consumption, when including imported products to satisfy national demand. The analysis of socioeconomic and environmental aspects embodied in consumption can shed a light on the real level of productivity of an economy, as well as the effects of rising imports and offshoring. This research introduces a consumption-based metric for productivity, in which we evaluate the loss of productivity of developed nations resulting from imports from less-developed economies and offshoring of labor-intensive production. We measure the labor, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions footprints in the European Union's trade with the rest of the world through a multiregional input-output model. We confirm that the labor footprint of European imports is significantly higher than the one of exports, mainly from low-skilled, labor-intensive primary sectors. A high share of labor embodied in exports is commonly associated with low energy productivities in domestic industries. Hence, this reconfirms that the offshoring of production to cheaper and low-skilled, labor-abundant countries offsets, or even reverts, energy efficiency gains and climate-change mitigation actions in developed countries.
As we confront the current environmental crisis, determining the biophysical base (e.g., material... more As we confront the current environmental crisis, determining the biophysical base (e.g., materials, energy,land, and water) of nations has become paramount. With advanced economies benefiting from the importof resource-intensive primary goods originating from poorer parts of the world, especially emergingnations, these are dilapidating their natural capital. Brazil is one of such emerging economies, whosemining and farming activities, propping up its export-led economic growth, exert great pressure on theenvironment. In particular, farming has been shown to have one of the world’s greatest environmentalimpacts, especially as a consequence of land use associated with cattle ranching. Since a nation-wideevaluation of land-use types across the whole sectorial spectrum of the country’s economy is still lacking,we used the most recently available Input–Output Economic Model for Brazil and the Ecological Footprintmethod to identify those economic sectors with the greatest potential for appropriating portions of thenatural world.Our results show that: (i) the biggest chunk of Brazil’s Ecological Footprint is due to its Carbon Footprintand, in particular, emissions from cattle; (ii) only a few economic sectors exhibit high Ecological Footprintvalues, chiefly those belonging to livestock farming and energy production based on fossil fuels; (iii)excluding the soybeans and slaughter sectors, export-oriented sectors have below-average EcologicalFootprint values; and (iv) the percentage of Brazil’s Ecological Footprint due to household consumption(excluding imports) is three times bigger than that attributable to exports, with sectors belonging tolivestock farming contributing the most to such disparity.These results underscore that the environmental impact of the Brazilian economy can be drasticallyreduced by tackling the emission-intensive production processes of a few sectors only and disincentiviz-ing the domestic consumption of a narrow range of products, especially with respect to the livestock segment.
Abstract: The extent to what bad labor conditions across the globe are associated with internatio... more Abstract: The extent to what bad labor conditions across the globe are associated with international trade is unknown. Here, we quantify the bad labor conditions associated with consumption in seven world regions, the “bad labor” footprint. In particular, we analyze how much occupational health damage, vulnerable employment, gender inequality, share of unskilled workers, child labor, and forced labor is associated with the production of internationally traded goods. Our results show that (i) as expected, there is a net flow of bad labor conditions from developing to developed regions; (ii) the production of exported goods in lower income regions contributes to more than half of the bad labor footprints caused by the wealthy lifestyles of affluent regions; (iii) exports from Asia constitute the largest global trade flow measured in the amount bad labor, while exports from Africa carry the largest burden of bad labor conditions per unit value traded and per unit of total labor required; and (IV) the trade of food products stands out in both volume and intensity of bad labor conditions.
Global production chains carry environmental and socioeconomic impacts embodied in each traded go... more Global production chains carry environmental and socioeconomic impacts embodied in each traded good and service. Even though labor and energy productivities tend to be higher for domestic production in high-income countries than those in emerging economies, this difference is significantly reduced for consumption, when including imported products to satisfy national demand. The analysis of socioeconomic and environmental aspects embodied in consumption can shed a light on the real level of productivity of an economy, as well as the effects of rising imports and offshoring. This research introduces a consumption-based metric for productivity, in which we evaluate the loss of productivity of developed nations resulting from imports from less-developed economies and offshoring of labor-intensive production. We measure the labor, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions footprints in the European Union's trade with the rest of the world through a multiregional input-output model. We confirm that the labor footprint of European imports is significantly higher than the one of exports, mainly from low-skilled, labor-intensive primary sectors. A high share of labor embodied in exports is commonly associated with low energy productivities in domestic industries. Hence, this reconfirms that the offshoring of production to cheaper and low-skilled, labor-abundant countries offsets, or even reverts, energy efficiency gains and climate-change mitigation actions in developed countries.
Environmental concerns and the search for climate change mitigation have led to the deployment of... more Environmental concerns and the search for climate change mitigation have led to the deployment of renewable energy technologies (RET) in several countries. The adoption of incentive policies, especially those based on heavy subsides, has motivated the discussion of social and economic benefits brought about by these technologies, mainly on the impact on employment rates. In this context, several studies have been conducted to quantify job creation by RET, concluding that the latter are more labor intensive than traditional fossil fueled technologies. However, results for different assessments vary largely due to distinct methodological approaches, and are frequently highly aggregated. Thus, results are not comparable or applicable to other contexts. Previous studies have failed to quantify the effects of imports and exports of RET equipment in total employment, usually associating employment and installed capacity in the year studied. This study has aimed to address these issues, creating an index for employment quantification based on production, instead of installed, capacity. We have estimated both direct jobs in manufacture, construction, and operation and management, and indirect jobs both in the upstream supply chains of materials and inputs to manufacture of wind turbines and construction of wind farms. We have also performed an assessment of jobs created in wind energy projects which are expected to begin operation in Brazil until 2017. The resulting job potential in Brazil corresponds to13.5 persons-year equivalent for each MW installed between manufacture and first year of operation of a wind power plant, and 24.5 persons-year equivalent over the wind farm lifetime. Results show that major contribution from wind power for job creation are in the construction stage and, despite of the low amount of jobs created in operation and maintenance relative to new installed capacity, those stable jobs stand out as they persist over the entire wind farm's life time.
Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems, Mar 2013
Investments in renewable energy and climate change mitigation go beyond the reduction of greenhou... more Investments in renewable energy and climate change mitigation go beyond the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Secondary benefits include technology transfer, reduction in emissions of other pollutants, and job creation, often called green jobs. It is known that job creation reflects on social, economic, environmental and territorial aspects. Therefore, it can be an indicator of social performance of energy projects. Wind power
has experienced an explosive growth over the past few years, and projects contracted between 2009 and 2011 will increase Brazilian installed capacity by 450% in 2016. This article evaluates the potential consequences of this rapid growth on job creation in Brazil. Jobs were quantified in manufacturing, installation and operation stages, observing national manufacture of major components. Estimated wind power growth will generate
90,000 jobs from 2012 till 2016. Over 74% of the jobs are created in the construction and operation stages, which have high level of local employment, bringing social and economic benefits to the installation sites.
A energia eólica no Brasil passou por um período de lento crescimento, porém, os projetos contrat... more A energia eólica no Brasil passou por um período de lento crescimento, porém, os projetos contratados nos últimos três anos deverão quintuplicar a capacidade instalada. É a tecnologia limpa que mais tem crescido na última década, trazendo benefícios ambientais e sociais para diversos países. Nosso trabalho buscou quantificar a geração de empregos diretos e indiretos pela energia eólica no país. Até 2020, serão gerados 195 mil empregos, e 70% desses são diretos, a maioria na construção civil, com grande potencial para a criação de empregos em localidades rurais. Assim, a energia eólica poderá contribuir decisivamente para o desenvolvimento sustentável do país.
The concern on environmental impacts and the search for climate change mitigation have led many c... more The concern on environmental impacts and the search for climate change mitigation have led many countries on the run to accelerate the development and the deployment of renewable energy technologies. Among those, wind power was recently the most successful technology, having achieved a growth of almost 15 times between 2000 and 2011. The adoption of incentive policies, especially those based on subsides, has led to the discussion of social and environmental benefits brought by this technology, focusing efforts on the assessment of the impacts on employment levels. Several studies have been made to quantify job creation by renewable energy technologies, and the main conclusion has been that they are more labor intensive than traditional fossil fuels technologies. However, the studies differ in methods and assumptions, and results are often published in an aggregated manner, making it difficult to compare the results. There are no studies available applied to the Latin American region. Wind power in Brazil has grown in a slow pace for over a decade. However, in the last three years, the projects contracted should increased wind power installed capacity in almost five times in only five years. This rapid estimated growth demands the assessment of impacts in the employment level. The present dissertation aimed to quantify the job creation potential of wind energy in Brazil. We have quantified not only direct jobs but also indirect jobs created in the Brazilian economy by the demand of inputs. To achieve this goal, we created a model that integrates life cycle assessment, semi-structured interviews, input-output models and scenario building. The obtained results let us affirm that wind energy can offer a significant contribution to job creation in Brazil, creating over 300 thousand job-years until 2020. Direct jobs account for around 70% of total jobs, and major contribution is found to be in the construction stage, which also has high potential to create local jobs in several rural areas. Thus, wind energy has the potential to contribute to sustainable development in Brazil.
Global electricity consumption rose exponentially over the last decades powered by fossil fueled ... more Global electricity consumption rose exponentially over the last decades powered by fossil fueled thermal power plants. In comparison, Brazil relies on large hydroelectric plants to generate most of its electricity. Nevertheless, the share of thermal electricity generation in Brazil has increased because thermal power can balance the seasonality of the hydroelectric based system and is cost competitive. Regardless its great wind potential, the use of this technology in Brazil is still timid. The country had only 835 MW of installed windpower capacity until November 2010, or 0.75% of its total. An aggressive wind power deployment has been constrained by its cost until recently. However, windpower has potential to act as a complementary energy source to hydropower during dry seasons, and its development could displace thermal power plants. This paper aims to quantify potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions and jobs creation in three different scenarios of wind energy development up to 2019. In the baseline scenario, windpower will create over 93,000 jobs and reduce up to 96 million tones of CO2 by 2019. In comparison, a massive windpower deployment scenario, , foresees the reduction of up to 176 million tones of CO2 and the generation of more than 225,000 jobs, most of them in the manufacturing sector. Therefore, wind power is an important alternative for promoting sustainable development in Brazil because it reduces GHG emissions and creates green jobs.
The fragmentation of the African continent into nations with limited economic and political devel... more The fragmentation of the African continent into nations with limited economic and political development and a geographic distribution resulted from years of colonization brought to recent efforts to embrace a regional integration, specially between adjacent states. The energy permits to gain the environmental, social and economical benefits from a more efficient use of resources. The African continent is that is that with the highest rate of population without access to electricity, particularly in the Sub-Sahara Africa. This article aims to evaluate the contribution of the energy infrastructure integration for the growth of access to electricity in the 12 countries of the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP), working since 1995. The study concluded there were gains in efficiency of electricity production and in electrification rates since the operation of the SAPP. Hence, there is yet much more to be done, both in the integration of the electrical systems and in electrification programs.
Uploads
Papers by Moana Simas
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
has experienced an explosive growth over the past few years, and projects contracted between 2009 and 2011 will increase Brazilian installed capacity by 450% in 2016. This article evaluates the potential consequences of this rapid growth on job creation in Brazil. Jobs were quantified in manufacturing, installation and operation stages, observing national manufacture of major components. Estimated wind power growth will generate
90,000 jobs from 2012 till 2016. Over 74% of the jobs are created in the construction and operation stages, which have high level of local employment, bringing social and economic benefits to the installation sites.
Keywords: Wind energy, extended input-output model, sustainable development, employment.
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
has experienced an explosive growth over the past few years, and projects contracted between 2009 and 2011 will increase Brazilian installed capacity by 450% in 2016. This article evaluates the potential consequences of this rapid growth on job creation in Brazil. Jobs were quantified in manufacturing, installation and operation stages, observing national manufacture of major components. Estimated wind power growth will generate
90,000 jobs from 2012 till 2016. Over 74% of the jobs are created in the construction and operation stages, which have high level of local employment, bringing social and economic benefits to the installation sites.
Keywords: Wind energy, extended input-output model, sustainable development, employment.