A framework to allocate responsibilities of the global environmental concerns: A case study in Spain involving regions, municipalities, productive sectors, industrial parks, and companies

Brais Suárez-Eiroa, Emilio Fernández, David Soto-Oñate, Aida Ovejero-Campos, Pablo Urbieta and Gonzalo Méndez

Ecological Economics, 2022, vol. 192, issue C

Abstract: This paper presents the responsible operating space (ROS) framework, a framework that includes both the common governance of the global environmental concerns and the comprehensive management of environmental sustainability. The ROS framework determines environmental objectives regarding the global concerns using a footprint perspective, and defines coherent integrated environmental objectives for the production and consumption processes at different territorial scales. In this case study, we firstly estimated the global ROS, as well as both the consumption-side ROS and the production-side ROS of Spain. Then, the national ROS was transferred to the 17 Spanish regions and was further extended to the 313 municipalities of one of the regions (Galicia). Finally, we transferred the ROS to 163 sectors, as well as to one industrial park and several companies. Our results demonstrate that, even assuming the methodological limitations and scarcity of data, it is already possible to allocate objectives and decentralize the management of global environmental concerns even at municipal and company levels. The role of circular economy under the ROS framework is also discussed on the basis of the potential coexistence of circularity with an unsustainable production-consumption system.

Keywords: Planetary boundaries; Socio-ecological system; Safe operating space; Circular economy; Environmental management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800921003177
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:192:y:2022:i:c:s0921800921003177

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107258

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().