EXIOBASE
Contents
Definition
EXIOBASE is a Multiregional Input-Output Model and database (MRIO) which contains data describing the global economy. It is described as “a global (multi-regional) Environmentally Extended Supply-and-Use / Input-Output database”.
Objective
The objective of EXIOBASE is to provide a tool with high suitability for global environmental analysis, in particular for EU countries and its main trade partners[1]
History
The EXIOBASE data set was developed as part of several projects carried out under the European research framework (EXIOPOL, CREEA, DESIRE).
Exiobase is a database of EE MRIO tables that has been developed by a European research consortium within the EU-Projects EXIOPOL2 (Exiobase V.1), CREEA3 (Exiobase V.2) and DESIRE4 (Exiobase V.3) funded by the European Commission under the 6th (EXIOPOL) and 7th (CREEA and DESIRE) framework program.
EXIOBASE 3 is the culmination of work in the FP7 DESIRE project and builds on EXIOBASE 2 undertaken during the FP7 CREEA project and on EXIOBASE 1 undertaken during the FP6 EXIOPOL project. These databases are available from the official EXIOBASE website. EXIOBASE 3 covers the period from 1995 to 2011. The original EXIOBASE 3 data series ends in 2011.
It was developed by harmonizing and detailing the SUTs for a large number of countries, estimating emissions and resource extractions by industry, linking the country EE SUT via trade to an MR EE SUT, and producing an MR EE IOT from this.
Versions
- EXIOBASE 1 - EXIOPOL (fp6) A New Environmental Accounting Framework Using Externality Data and Input-Output Tools for Policy Analysis
- EXIOBASE 2 - CREEA (fp7) Compiling and Refining Environmental and Economic Accounts
- EXIOBASE 3 - DESIRE (fp7) Development of a System of Indicators for a Resource efficient Europe
Structure
EXIOBASE includes 43 countries (95% of global GDP) and 5 RoW regions (150 smaller countries in clusters). The number of countries is limited (similar to WIOD), but at least five RoW sectors are available.
EXIOBASE has a high level of sectoral detail (160 sectors), which is applied to all countries in the database. The sectoral classification follows the ISIC 3 nomenclature.
EXIOBASE is compatible with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) with sectorial detail matched with multiple social and environmental satellite accounts.
EXIBOASE takes all EU-28 countries as well as the EU’s 16 most important trading partners into account. The rest of the world is represented in five groups (Asia and Pacific, America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East), and 163 industries and 200 products are covered. The data set also contains a variety of environmental data, such as information on energy consumption, water abstraction, and air and water pollution. The database provides the technology matrix “A”. Categories of final demand and value added are provided separately.
Data related to environmental impacts are grouped into 4 accounts:
- The emission account provides quantitative data on industry-specific emissions of 27 pollutants, including GHGs, nitrogen and phosphate;
- The water account documents water consumption (blue and green) and water withdrawal of agricultural, manufacturing and energy production activities;
- The material account documents the extraction of 222 raw materials, including biomass items (data retrieved from FAOSTAT), metal ores and minerals (data retrieved from the British Geological Survey (BGS 2014), the US Geological Survey (USGS 2014) and the World Mining Data (Reichl, Schatz, and Zsak 2014)) and fossil fuels (data retrieved from the International Energy Agency (IEA 2014a; 2014b));
- The land account lists the area consumption related to agricultural and settlement activities for 15 types of land use.
Compilation Procedure
All EXIOBASE versions use SUT in the background. The starting point: National SUT
Disaggregation based on:
- Detailed IO/SUT
- FAOstat (Agriculture)
- IEA (Energy)
- Mining databases
- LCA data
Database Structure
The data can be downloaded for free and are available in two formats. Industry by industry tables describe interindustry monetary flows, while product by product tables describe the relationships between products directly. The folder contains (main files):
- Y.txt: final demand, i.e. sales of the 163 industries of the 49 regions to the 7 types of final demand in each region
- A.txt: the matrix of technical coefficients
- F.txt: the environmental accounts for all extensions (energy, emissions, water, materials, land) related to the total production (and not the production per million euros) of each industry
- unit.txt: file describing the units of all figures in the data
Issues and Challenges
- The data for specific countries might deviate from the data within the national accounts of those countries. A harmonised version of Exiobase is referred to forthwith as SNAC Exiobase (Single-country National Accounts Consistent)[2]
- Data are being “now-cast”, which means that part of the data is extrapolated based on incomplete information.
- non-unique coupling with NACE
- the L matrix is not part of the files provided for download on EXIOBASE website
Because building MRIO datasets requires important data work, a trade-off often exists between regional and sectoral detail. Namely, MRIO models either provide a wide range of industries and a limited number of regions, or the opposite: fewer industries but numerous regions. EXIOBASE 3 falls into the first category. Hence, the regional detail is sometimes scarce, especially for the five “Rest of World” regions. This is all the more important for our study given that such regions are often critical when it comes to biodiversity impact assessment. Sectoral precision seemed however even more important, hence our choice to use EXIOBASE 3 rather than a more regionally detailed MRIO database.
Although very detailed, EXIOBASE environmental extensions also suffer from limitations, not in terms of items listed but rather in terms of sectoral allocation. Indeed, some extensions like the water account only concern a limited number of industries, in this example Agriculture, Livestock breeding, Manufacturing and Electricity related industries. This causes default assessments by the GBS to endogenously ignore part of companies impacts as their contribution to some pressures will not be accounted for. This part can be material, for instance for the industry “Collection, purification and distribution of water”. This fact reinforces the need to complement IO default data by company data whenever possible.
