Though the environmental impacts of EU consumption are felt around the world, countries in Eastern Europe have experienced the highest environmental pressures and impacts associated with EU citizens’ consumption, the study, published in ‘Nature Sustainability’ journal, found.

Large shares of 10 major environmental pressures and impacts are ‘outsourced’ to countries and regions outside the EU while more than 85 per cent of the economic benefits remain within member countries, albeit with uneven distribution of costs and benefits within the EU, a press release from the University of Birmingham said.

These indicators included greenhouse gas emissions, material consumption, land use, consumption of surface and ground water, particulate matter formation, photochemical oxidation and biodiversity loss due to land coverage, as well as freshwater, marine and terrestrial eco-toxicity.

Researchers from the Universities of Birmingham (UK), Groningen (the Netherlands) and Maryland (US), as well as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also analysed value added by consumption of goods and services within the current 27 EU member countries to economies between 1995 and 2019.

Seven analysed pressures and impacts—eco-toxicity indicators, greenhouse gas emissions, particulate matter formation, photochemical oxidation and material consumption—increased notably outside the EU, while decreasing within the bloc.

Eastern Europe consistently ranked as the region receiving the lowest share of economic value added compared to environmental pressures and impacts associated with EU consumption.

Pressures and impacts induced by EU consumption dropped in most of its member states—for the Netherlands and Sweden, indicators in all ten categories dropped from 1995 to 2019. Austria, Czechia, Italy, Poland, Romania and Slovenia all saw decreases in nine of ten analysed environmental pressures and impacts.

In contrast, all analysed impacts and pressures associated with EU consumption increased in Brazil, China, India, Japan, as well as in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)