Locating pressures on water, energy and land resources across global supply chains

Hotspots of resource use in country and sector supply chains are poorly understood, due in part to the unitary nature of environmental footprinting assessment. Understanding the profile of country and sector resource dependencies across their entire supply chain is needed to inform their integrated management. Within this study pressures across the global water, energy and land (WEL) system are located along the supply networks of 189 countries and 24 global sectors. These profiles reveal the focal supply chain tier(s) where country and sector pressures across the global WEL system arise. Viewed through a supply chain lens, pathways of water, energy and land use are found to be mainly indirect, arising from country and sector resource dependencies on immediate (tier two) and upstream (tier three+) producers in their supply network. However, the distribution of these pressures varies within and between national and sectoral supply networks and resource systems, requiring tailored management to mitigate their multiple impacts. These differences in the resource pressure profile of countries and sectors is scarcely recognised by existing modelling approaches or supplier reporting guidelines, but is of major consequence to the optimal management of the global WEL system. If measures are not taken to extend accountability for the indirect pressures imposed across the global WEL system, the resource burden of consumption will be greatly mismanaged.