The Environment Strategy for Scotland: Delivering the Environment Strategy Outcome on Scotland's Global Footprint - Evidence Base & Policy Levers

3. Introduction

3.1 Purpose of the report

With clear evidence of the linked global climate and nature emergencies, and growing resource constraints, the Scottish Government is inquiring how Scotland can most effectively face this emerging reality. Scotland’s Environment Strategy aims to support a whole-of-government approach to playing Scotland’s part in tackling these crises, recognising that this will rely on transformations in Scotland’s economy and society.

As part of this effort, Scotland wants to understand its overseas environmental impacts and how it can manage (and, ultimately, minimise) them. This is enshrined in one of the Environment Strategy’s six outcomes: ‘We are responsible global citizens with a sustainable international footprint’. The Scottish Government is developing a ‘pathway’ for achieving this outcome, identifying actions and priorities across government for improving the sustainability of Scotland’s overseas impact.

This report helps to provide the evidence base for informing the development of this pathway. It addresses two research questions:

1. What does evidence tell us about the impact of Scotland’s consumption and production on the natural environment in other countries around the world, and the extent to which this is sustainable?

2. What policy levers could be used most effectively to improve the sustainability of Scotland’s international environmental impact?

Section 1 of the report addresses the first research question, which calls for a “rapid/systematic evidence review describing Scotland’s overall global environmental footprint and the extent to which this exceeds the planet’s sustainable limits; and the impact of Scotland’s consumption and production in relation to specific types of environmental degradation in other countries, such as deforestation, water stress and species overexploitation. The review should identify key impacts, which make a significant contribution to Scotland’s overall overseas impact, to help guide and prioritise the selection of policy levers.”

3.2 Key definitions used

A number of key terms that are used throughout the report are defined as follows:

• Biocapacity: the amount of regenerative capacity of an ecosystem. It is measured in global hectares.
• Biocapacity Deficit (ecological deficit): a country's biocapacity deficit is the gap between the country's Ecological Footprint and biocapacity. It is measured in global hectares. An ecological deficit at the country level does not imply the existence of negative environmental impacts domestically because biocapacity can be imported. However, in the era of overshoot, it inevitably leads to ecological depletion somewhere on the planet.
• Consumption Land-Use Matrix (CLUM): a table that presents Ecological Footprint results by consumption category and by area use type.
• Ecological Footprint: the biocapacity consumed or demanded through an activity. In the context of this report, it refers to the biocapacity demanded by activities of a population, whether Scotland, the UK or the world. The Ecological Footprint adds up all competing demands on ecosystem regeneration. It includes food, fibres, carbon sequestration, space for shelter and roads etc. The carbon Footprint is one domain of the Ecological Footprint. Other of the planet’s productive surface areas covered by National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts are fishing grounds, crop land, pasture, forests and built-up areas. Ecological Footprint is measured in global hectares.
• Ecological Overshoot: overshoot generally refers to the condition where demand exceeds regeneration. Global ecological overshoot is, by definition, unsustainable and results in the manifestation of negative environmental impacts. The absence of overshoot does not imply sustainability or absence of environmental impacts. But it is a necessary condition for enabling sustainability.
• Global hectare: the standard unit for Footprint and biocapacity accounting. It is defined as a biologically productive hectare with world average productivity. Using it allows the comparison of Footprint and biocapacity over time, across geographies and across area types (biologically productive land and sea areas).
• Regeneration: Regeneration is used here in the biological sense, referring to the ability of a natural system, powered by photosynthesis, to renew biomass and support life. From an ecological perspective, this is often measured and referred to as the net primary production of an ecosystem. It can be seen as the currency of life because it is the energetic basis of almost all life on earth. Even mining for ores and minerals links to regeneration. For most elements, the amounts left underground are far less limiting than the damage their extraction and processing causes to the biosphere. Therefore, products from mining are also meaningfully evaluated from a regeneration perspective: how much regeneration is needed for reaping one unit of mining product?