Assessing positive and negative effects of global supply chains through water footprinting

The balance between economic benefits and environmental pressure from the global and regional scale perspectives

Bibliographic Data

ID19468375
AuthorsKeitaro Maeno (0000-0001-5981-6504, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, corresponding author), Kamrul Islam (0000-0001-8329-5366, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology), M Kamrul Islam (0000-0003-4751-1513), Masaharu Motoshita (0000-0003-1576-0531, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)
Year2026
Publication date2026-05-13
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Industrial Ecology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1088-1980 • E-ISSN: 1530-9290
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s44498-026-00091-3
OpenAlexW7161028682
LanguageEN
References cited28

While the global supply chains (GSCs) of industries cause excessive pressure on sustainable freshwater availability in the regions involved in the GSCs, they simultaneously deliver socio-economic benefits which have attracted less attention in the context of water footprinting. Using a multi-regional input–output analysis, we proposed a framework to analyze the balance between the economic value-added (VA) and the environmental pressure of freshwater “over” consumption (WOC) that exceeds the sustainable freshwater availability in 120 sectors of 164 countries, which are induced in each country’s GSCs from both global and regional scale perspectives. The results revealed that the VA-based efficiency of WOC (i.e., the balance between both positive and negative effects) in each country’s GSCs in 2015 largely varied reflecting the absolute amount of both effects (i.e., the global scale perspective) and those relative contributions to each country within the relevant GSCs (i.e., the regional scale perspective). Furthermore, the proposed framework demonstrated the possibility of identifying country- and sector-wise key points for enhancing the efficiency in the relevant GSCs: Even in the cases where the domestic sectors within the GSCs exert substantial WOC at the global scale, one case indicated the priority of measures to reduce water consumption in the domestic sector with respect to those positive contributions to the relevant domestic economy, while another case suggested an advantage of outsourcing of relevant products within the GSCs considering the efficiency gap in the balance of both effects between the domestic and foreign relevant sectors. We highlighted that the inclusive assessment of the positive and negative effects in the GSCs will contribute to promoting global investments and governmental support toward establishing more appropriate GSC structures for sustainable freshwater use

Industrial ecology · Supply chain · Sustainability · Water balance · Environmental Impact and Sustainability · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Water Resources and Sustainability

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