Environment strategy: global environmental impacts of consumption and production

8. Discussion

Although there has been extensive analysis on materials used (e.g. Conde et al., 2023, for Zero Waste Scotland) and environmental footprints of Scotland and the European Union (e.g. Damiani et al., 2022 and the Joint Research Centre), insufficient data exist, at least in the public domain, to quantify those impacts, or provide details of products used in Scotland or their supply chains. However, previously published synthesis, notably by SNIFFER (2011a, b) provide analyses of materials flows and information on the types of raw materials which are significant in the Scottish economy, their geographic origin, and evidence of the types of environmental impacts created with their provision.

Approaches to minimising the environmental impacts of consumption and production in Scotland, external to its borders, will need to be informed by assessments and verification of claims about environmental standards being met (e.g. certification schemes). For example, for the high value Scottish businesses involved in producing chocolate, consideration is required for cacao and sugar for its manufacture, materials for its wrapping, resources for product transportation, and possible recycling or re-use that involves packaging (e.g. OECD 2016b).

In the European Union such standards are likely to be promoted by a combination of regulation (e.g. Mandatory due diligence), incentive (e.g. complimentary to environmental schemes in agriculture), and the provision of information to enable companies, public bodies and citizens to assess the environmental, social and economic performance of products or producers.

In 2022, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence (European Commission, 2022). The aim is to foster sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour throughout global value chains. Businesses will be obliged to identify, prevent, end or mitigate adverse impacts which include on the environment, such as pollution and biodiversity loss). Associated measures adopted by EU Member States could provide information from lessons can be learnt and adapted to Scottish circumstances. However, some policy levers are powers reserved to UK Government and not available to the Scottish Government. For example, trade and industry is a reserved matter, or international agreements to with the UK Government is the signatory (e.g. Basel Convention on the control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous wastes and its amendments). For example, trade and industry is a reserved matter. So, whereas the UK Environment Act 2021 notes that environmental protection is a devolved responsibility, and that the Scottish Government can legislate for environmental principles in Scotland (UK Government, 2023), it is likely that any adoption of due diligence that would be consistent with the European Union directive would be a matter reserved to the UK Government.

Progressively, information is becoming more specific on individual locations and sources of raw materials or production. For example, the analysis of the German Environment Agency presented through its interactive map provides an overview of potential environmental hazards at the mining sites included (German Environment Agency, 2023). Amongst the databases attributes there are indicators of the quality of the data used, rated low to high; descriptions of factors under technology (e.g. waste handling, tailings); a water stress index and whether the site is in a desert area; whether a site intersects a protected area; an environmental hazard potential (e.g. earthquakes, landslips) (e.g. Schnebele et al., 2019); and the grade of ore produced. However, such databases and approaches contain no explicit consideration of cumulative environmental impacts. Consideration of potential impacts of an activity on the environment would benefit from the approaches required on EIA as set out by Scottish Government (2013) on:

i) Impact Interactions, which are the reactions between impacts whether between the impacts of just one project or between the impacts of other projects in the area”;

ii) Additive Impacts, which are the impacts which result from incremental changes caused by other past, present or reasonably foreseeable actions together with the project.

Aligned with the use of such databases is the role of certification schemes. Increasingly, producers (large and small) are signing up to, or piloting, schemes of most relevance to their business. Such schemes require guidelines and means of understanding the prospective environmental impacts of inputs to, and reuse of products from, the Scottish economy.

Innovations in technologies and values of raw materials have led to research into scope for extracting metal ores from UK sources. For example, British Geological Survey (e.g. Gunn and Deady, 2022) have identified sites in Scotland, and south-west and north-west England with potential for cobalt extraction. Investigations have also been prepared for a set of critical raw materials (CRMs), presented in combination. Similarly, commercial companies and research funded by UKRI (e.g. Li4UK) are looking to UK sources of Lithium Carbonate to satisfy expanded demand for raw materials for transitions to decarbonising transport. Funding of £53.6m has been secured for lithium mining in Cornwall. This reduces the environmental impacts created in existing countries of supply (e.g. South America, Australia), but replaces them with prospective impacts in the UK (e.g. Trelavour Downs, Cornwall; Aberdeenshire). In both examples, the use of the raw materials would remain but the geographic sourcing could include Scotland, thus changing the territorial attribution of environmental impacts (Zero Waste Scotland, 2023). Increased demand for such raw materials will lead to a balance to be struck between where the significance of environmental impacts may be lowest, and whether they accrue at territorial and global levels.

The provision of inputs to the Scottish economy are subject to the geopolitical issues linked to the international nature of supply chains. For example, changing sources of energy to limit the environmental impacts of different types of energy sources would be constrained by the tightening of supplies due to war in Ukraine, global availability, and diplomatic considerations. Sources may have to be used where standards of environmental management are lower than desired or secured elsewhere. A similar issue is identified by Huber and Steininger (2022) of risks associated with supply chain governance of rare earths used in production of wind turbines, solar photovoltaic modules, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries. Such risks may be due to natural disasters and facilities failing, or changes in political administrations which lead, in turn, to changes in position over the permissibility and responsibility for the extraction and export of mineral resources. Related is understanding the life cycle of products, including the export of recovered materials for recycling or processing. Recognition is needed of the creation of environmental impacts from those processes, potentially involving most of the types of impacts listed in Appendix 2.