Accounting for Ecosystem Contribution to Economic Sectors by Thermodynamic Input-Output Analysis, Part I. Approach

Ecosystems are vital to any human activity because they constitute the basic planetary support systems. Their deterioration threatens the sustainability of all industrial activity and erodes a nation’s productive capital base. A necessary step towards preserving ecosystems is to estimate their contribution to economic activity. Most contemporary economic, thermodynamic and life cycle assessment methods fail in this regard because they take ecosystems for granted. The concept of Ecological Cumulative Exergy Consumption (ECEC) does consider ecological products and services by expanding traditional or industrial cumulative exergy consumption (ICEC) analysis to account for exergy consumed in the ecological processes necessary for the relevant industrial processes. This series of two papers develops the methodology and application of ECEC analysis to an economy. This paper presents the methodology for including natural capital, ecosystem services, human resources and impact of emissions. Inputs from all these categories may be converted into a single thermodynamic unit of solar equivalent joule. Subsequently these inputs are allocated through the economic system using economic inputoutput data. This enables evaluation of direct as well as indirect contribution from ecosystems to economic sectors. Part I of this series explains the methodology with the help of a small illustrative example, while Part II applies the methodology to the US economy.