National-level consumption-based and production-based utilisation of the land-system change planetary boundary: patterns and trends

Abstract

To achieve responsible consumption and production under UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, national agri-food consumption and production need to be assessed against environmental limits. We downscaled the land-system change planetary boundary and allocated national-scale cropland environmental limits for agri-food consumption via fair-share allocation based on population, and for agri-food production via biophysical allocation based on available arable land. We assessed country-level utilisation of the land-system change planetary boundary via quantifying national cropland footprints (including imports/exports) using an environmentally extended multi-regional input–output model. Consumption-based footprints were assessed against fair-share cropland limits and production-based footprints were assessed against biophysical cropland limits. Most countries’ agri-food consumption footprints exceeded their fair-share cropland limit while production utilisation of biophysical limits was less pronounced. Conversely, China and India’s cropland consumption footprints were safely within their fair-share environmental limits (utilisation percentages of 80% and 74%, respectively), while their cropland production footprints exceeded biophysical limits (utilisation percentages of 132% and 165%, respectively). Assessing country-level utilisation of the environmental limit for cropland can provide a basis for countries to act as individual entities, or collectively, to develop policies that mitigate their global cropland demand and minimise the risks associated with the exceedance of the land-system change planetary boundary.

Keywords

• Planetary boundaries
• Downscaling
• Multi-regional input–output (MRIO)
• Cropland footprint
• Land-system change
• Environmental limits