Transcript "Destroying Value": Environmental Impacts of Global Production

Chapter 15
‘Destroying
Value’:
Environmental Impacts of
Global Production Networks
Review
• Concepts to Review
– GPNs; value creation; exploitation;
resource-extractive industries
• Key Words
– Environment; sustainability; municipal
solid waste; e-waste; waste trading
Environmental Degradation
• Impact of production on the environment
– Production can destroy as well as create value:
ecology notes
– Are economy and society sustainable? Possibly not
– Issues of balance, and this balance is disrupted by human action
• Climate change
– Human-induced climate change is dominant
– Association between rising C02 levels and growth of modern
industry
– How to measure carbon emissions?
– Consumption versus production perspectives on CO2 emissions
– Atmospheric damage by other industrial processes
– Role of ships in pollution
– The world’s major cities are also major pollution loci
Social Impacts
• Developing countries particularly lose out; most
of their production is for export, and so their
carbon use is for the benefit of others
• Double exposure: cases where a particular area or group
is confronted by both impacts of climate change and
globalization
• Sectoral and national effects
• ‘Among the most vulnerable social groups affected by
double exposure are the poor residents of cities in both
the developed and developing worlds’
• Different sets of winners and losers from globalization
emerge when economic globalization and environmental
change are considered
Concept of Waste
• Distinguishing between waste and useful
materials is far from straightforward
• Waste is better seen as unintended consequences of
material transformations
• Many countries do not report waste, or do so
inconsistently
• Hazardous wastes are particularly problematic: these are
wastes which have ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity
and/or toxicity
• Mineral extraction is a significant creator of waste
• New industries also produce waste (‘e-waste’): only
about 50 per cent of a computer is recycled
• Throwaway consumer society creates a lot of municipal
solid waste (MSW)
Waste Management
• Recycling: sustainable waste management?
–
–
–
–
–
Waste almost always has potential to become a valued
material
All countries have some kind of waste recycling strategy
Recycling forms basis of new business and industries; value is re-created
Economics of recycling are volatile
Recycling has significant environmental benefits
• The economics of waste management
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Global shift in waste: relocation of waste on an international scale
‘Pollution havens’
Safety and environmental management
TNCs often criticized as adopting less stringent safety practices in
developing world
Most waste trading is between developed countries
Little waste is actually traded; however most of what is traded is
hazardous
‘Reverse trade’ — trading away unwanted goods rather than trading for
wanted ones