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

2. Executive Summary

2.1 The questions this report tackles

With clear evidence of the interlinked 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 addresses Research Question 1 on evaluating the sustainability of Scotland’s overseas impact. This section of the report recommends how to think about the challenge of measuring and evaluating ecological impacts of a nation outside its boundaries, and what tools are most relevant for that task. Therefore, it proposes a metric and starts by explaining why this metric is best suited for quantifying Scotland’s international Footprint (called “overseas Footprint” in this report). Effective metrics must respond to the current context, particularly as humanity has entered the epoch of the Anthropocene. This new time is characterized by humanity becoming the dominant geological force on the planet, largely through persistent global overshoot i.e. human demand exceeding what the planet’s ecosystems can renew.

2.2 Overshoot as the overarching driver

Overshoot is the demand on ecological resources that exceeds what the ecosystems can regenerate. During overshoot, the planet’s ecological regeneration becomes the most limiting physical bottleneck for economies. Even fossil fuel is most severely limited by ecological regeneration, as this energy source is more constrained on the waste end (the finite amount of greenhouse gas emissions that ecosystems can assimilate) than by the remaining stocks underground.

Therefore, using regeneration as the metric’s lens is the most effective way to systemically track the ecological performance of a city, a country, a company or even humanity as a whole.

By now, the sum of all human activities competing for our planet’s “regenerative budget” is so large that only portions are renewed, and the rest depends on depleting the planet’s ecosystems. As explained in the report, regenerating humanity’s total demand would currently require more than 1.7 Earths. The situation is even tighter than this number may suggest, because some portions of Earth would need to be set aside for biodiversity to stop its decline. Some advocate for the goal of not using more than ½ Earth, which is more than three times less than humanity’s current biological resource demand.

The ratio between human demand and regeneration can be quantified by mapping both demand and availability of biologically productive land required to provide for this demand. This is the reason comprehensive Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting is chosen as overarching metric for Research Question 1.

2.3 What Ecological Footprint accounts reveal about Scotland’s overseas impact

The Ecological Footprint represents the demand side – the sum of all the productive areas needed to regenerate what is being taken, such as forests, pasture, crop area or fishing grounds. Biocapacity represents the availability – the sum of all these productive areas that exist to provide regeneration. Tracking these through the same lens then allows analysts to compare demand against availability. This then shows the levels of deficits and overshoot.

The consequences of overshoot include climate change, biodiversity loss and resource depletion. These impacts also motivate Scotland’s interest to address its overseas Footprints. Managing such impacts requires metrics that can track them, both from the perspective of demand on, as well as availability of, ecological regeneration. Such a metric also helps inform what could be considered “responsible” and “sustainable”, thereby supporting the implementation of goals for climate and nature.

More specifically, through the research for this report, this resource accounting approach found that:

• Scotland’s demand on regeneration, i.e. its Ecological Footprint of consumption, stretches to 4.3 global hectares per person, slightly higher than the UK average of 4.2 global hectares per person.
• Scotland’s Ecological Footprint of consumption currently exceeds by about one quarter what its territory’s ecosystems can renew i.e. its biocapacity. Compared to the UK’s biocapacity, which is only 1.1 global hectares per person, Scotland’s biocapacity per person (3.5 global hectares) is over three times larger. Still, with a Footprint of 4.3 global hectares per person, Scotland runs a biocapacity deficit. This biocapacity deficit can be met without over-drawing on local ecosystems, for instance by importing goods and services or using global commons such as the atmosphere or international waters. But since humanity's Footprint already exceeds the planet's biocapacity by at least 70%, demand beyond the available biocapacity inevitably leads to depletion somewhere on the planet.
• An estimated 47% of Scotland’s consumption originates from countries outside the UK. Food comprises the largest overseas Footprint among all consumption categories. Goods have the largest portion of their Footprint originating overseas – over 70%. Housing is on the other end of the extreme with only one quarter sourced from overseas.

At the core of the analysis provided in Section 1 is a table, summarized just below, and with the full details in Appendix A. This table, called the Consumption Land-Use Matrix (or CLUM), provides a breakdown of a country’s consumption in 50+ categories by 6 land area types. Below, the CLUM is further divided to show consumption that originates overseas (due to data and scope limitations, we could not determine how much comes from UK versus Scotland, so overseas refers to outside of the UK). CLUMs can also distinguish for each category how much is consumption for building stocks (called “Gross Fixed Capital Formation”) versus for short term use. Short term consumption is divided into that paid for by governments (such as policing, education, social services) or directly purchased by households.

The summarized CLUM below shows the rough distribution, in global hectares per person, of Scotland’s total consumption, and breaks down how much of these demands is satisfied by biocapacity from overseas (in yellow) versus from Scotland and the rest of the UK. It also breaks down Scotland’s consumption into carbon versus non-carbon Footprints.

This table, for instance, reveals that 0.42 global hectares (gha) per person from overseas are occupied to feed, on average, a Scottish resident. It also shows that about half of the capacity used for capital formation, which in itself contributes about 15% to Scotland’s Footprint (0.6 gha/person out of 4.3), stems from overseas.

Recognising these large resource dependencies and their geographic origins from an all-encompassing perspective illustrates how global overshoot reduction is central to combatting climate change and ecological depletion.

Nearly 60% of Scotland’s total Ecological Footprint comes from its carbon Footprint i.e. the area of forestland required to absorb the carbon emissions from Scotland’s consumption (in excess of what the oceans already absorb). However, as consumption emissions already being considered through the Scottish Government’s climate change policies, this research project focuses on Scotland’s non-carbon Footprint. Within this, it addresses the portion of Scotland’s non-carbon Footprint that originates from overseas. The table shows that the consumption areas which make the greatest contribution to this Footprint are food and goods. In turn, the contribution from goods is dominated by clothing, as shown in the more detailed CLUM in Appendix A.

2.4 How to deal with overseas impacts, given we live in the Anthropocene

Section 2 addresses Research Question 2 by examining what policy options exist to respond to the findings presented in Section 1. In other words, it discusses the strategies and opportunities to reduce what we call here Scotland’s “overseas Footprint”. This section of the report recommends how to think about the challenge of developing effective policies that would lead to lasting impact reductions abroad.

In the past, it would suffice to directly address specific impacts. However, in the epoch of the Anthropocene, with persistent overshoot, impacts have become systemic. Therefore, it now requires managing economies’ overall demand on “nature’s budget”: reducing overuse in one place without reducing demand will simply move demand and its impact somewhere else. In other words, impacts are no longer just a question of quality (how we interact with nature) but of quantity (how much we demand i.e. the size of economies’ material metabolism).

Reducing the total quantity of consumption demand will therefore be essential in order to achieve Scotland’s goal of having a sustainable international footprint. This will require careful management, since quantity reduction efforts can be challenging to achieve. Internationally, most efforts that have been successful to date involve shifts from using higher impact resources to lower impact resources, like the phase out of CFCs in the Montreal protocol in favour of less damaging compounds, or the move from coal-based electricity to solar and wind. There have been fewer examples to date of deliberate reductions in amounts consumed (examples include reductions through water and energy use efficiencies in times of scarcity).

Therefore, Section 2 emphasizes ways to reduce consumption demand while also strengthening Scotland’s long-term prosperity. Approaches that position the environmental goal in ways that support wider societal goals have the highest chance of being embraced. Also, the report explains the benefit of taking the broader view of building Scotland’s ‘wealth’ (i.e. its capacity to operate and thrive) rather than merely driving income (e.g. as measured by Gross Domestic Product), when evaluating policies. Drawing on international examples and existing policy levers, the report recommends how to think about the challenge, outlines possible policy interventions and explores how these could be positioned among current government activities.

2.5 What we can learn from others’ examples

This portion of the report builds on a review by the James Hutton Institute (Rivington et al., 2023) in which they discussed policy examples from around the world that aim at reducing environmental impacts abroad. This review makes clear that even ‘best practices’ are too weak to respond to the size of the challenge, and that many practices have not been in place long enough to even determine their effectiveness.

Most of the existing policies addressing impacts abroad focus on quality aspects, thereby underplaying overshoot. The consequence is impact displacement rather than their reduction. For example, policies preventing deforestation somewhere, or purchasing the deforestation-free portions of market offers while not reducing excess forest demand, inevitably shift the pressure on forests to somewhere else.

2.6 Intervention opportunities

Consequently, this report identifies specific Footprint reduction opportunities from a systemic perspective. Because the report was tasked with evaluating Scotland’s impact on the natural environment overseas, we chose to focus on those consumption categories with large portions of their Footprints representing biological inputs, such as food and clothes (i.e. Scotland’s non-carbon Footprint). Therefore, the report barely addresses the largest Footprint component, the carbon Footprint. As noted above, Scotland’s consumption emissions are already being considered by other domains of Scottish Government policy. But carbon Footprint reductions would follow a similar logic as outlined here to be successful. It is also important to note that, since climate change is a key driver of biodiversity loss, Scotland’s carbon Footprint contributes to its impact on nature overseas.

Finally, the Footprint reduction opportunities identified are also analysed from the perspective of how well they serve other core priority goals of the government, to avoid policy conflicts. Intervention mechanisms are categorized consistently with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee’s review of sustainable consumption policy levers (Harris, 2023).

In summary, the recommendations presented in Section 2 address opportunities for reducing food waste, strengthening local food production, supporting agricultural innovation, promoting sustainable, healthy diets and establishing more circular supply chains for the textile industry. Scotland already has policies in place across many of these areas, but there are opportunities to go further and to address gaps. For example:

• Reducing food waste:
  • Increase action to tackle waste in the broader food value chain e.g. at the packaging, distribution, and supermarket levels.
  • Strengthen use of regulatory and economic levers for tackling food waste.
  • Increase the ambition of food waste targets (which lag behind some other European countries).
• Strengthening local food production:
  • Go beyond the current focus on public procurement to encourage consumption of local, sustainably-produced food by households.
  • Explore additional opportunities for using ecolabelling, and for investing in short supply chain, circular infrastructure, like vending machines for local produce.
• Supporting agricultural innovation:
  • Increase R&D support for agricultural innovations like vertical farming that can help to reduce land footprint, environmental impact and emissions.
• Promoting sustainable, healthy diets:
  • Explore additional opportunities for using ecolabelling e.g. on the carbon footprint of food products, to influence consumer choices.
  • Ensure school education empowers young people to understand the implications of different food choices, and how to cook with more seasonal, plant-based ingredients.
• Establishing more circular supply chains for the textile industry:
  • Make greater use of:
    • taxation of virgin materials, versus decreased taxes on secondary raw materials
    • eco-design and sustainable production requirements.
  • Increase action to encourage changes in consumer attitudes and consumption habits e.g. via:
    • information and educational campaigns
    • investing in infrastructure for rentals, repair and recycling
    • incentivising sustainable purchasing through discounts.

The section concludes by identifying initiatives already pursued by the Scottish Government that could be used as vehicles for implementing the recommendations. Opportunities identified include:

• Keep Scotland’s focus on a comprehensive Environment Strategy, which recognises the interconnectedness of the climate and nature emergencies and the fundamental relationship with Scotland’s economy.
• Accelerate Scotland’s transition to a circular economy by exploring opportunities for products and services produced in Scotland that currently use imported natural resources (e.g. feed inputs for agriculture and aquaculture) to make increased use of waste produced domestically. This could potentially be facilitated via post-CAP agriculture funding; Scottish Enterprise and Zero Waste Scotland grants programmes; support for vertical farming to generate alternative feedstocks; redesigning waste management to maximise repurposing of wasted materials; and encouraging long-term planning by the forest industry to serve Scottish industrial needs, including for construction materials.
• Educate and empower young people to be sustainable consumers of the future through increased focus in the national curriculum e.g. on food products’ carbon footprints; meal planning to combat food waste and use environmentally lighter ingredients; and impacts of, and alternatives to, fast fashion.
• Explore opportunities for transferring Scotland’s green skills (e.g. on remanufacturing) to overseas suppliers to help them produce products that have lower Ecological Footprints. Also invest in expanding Scotland’s green skills in areas like vertical farming.
• Explore opportunities for extending Scotland’s existing successful partnership models (e.g. business engagement by Zero Waste Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and the Dornoch Environmental Enhancement Project) to help reduce overseas ecological impact by replacing imports with domestically sourced products.
• Explore opportunities for grants programmes run by Scottish Enterprise and Zero Waste Scotland to provide extra incentives to grant recipients to reduce their overseas ecological impact (e.g. through awarding additional funding of points).
• Similarly, explore opportunities for adapting public procurement policy to award extra points to providers that demonstrate reduction in overseas impact.
• Build on Scotland’s strong metrics approach by including indicators on Scotland’s resource security e.g. by producing accounts that track demand on and availability of regeneration.
• Support new industries that reduce Ecological Footprint to get an early foothold in Scotland. This could potentially be facilitated through a project to identify the next ten new ‘low ecological impact industries of tomorrow’ and whether there is any existing or future potential to develop any of these industries partly or fully in Scotland.

Achieving the Environment Strategy’s goal of ensuring Scotland has a sustainable overseas Footprint requires a lower material metabolism of the Scottish economy, involving a shift to sustainable forms and levels of consumption. The example recommendations outlined above and in Section 2 are not, in themselves, sufficient to achieve this goal. However, this report recommends how to approach the challenge, and how to position interventions to make them more likely to succeed, in the context of wider goals for a thriving Scotland.