Comment on 'Resource Footprints are Good Proxies of Environmental Damage'

摘要

Steinmann et al. argue that "resource footprints are good proxies of environmental damage". They do so by using multiple regression analysis of four independent variables (energy, material, land and water footprint) to model two dependent variables (damage to human health and damage to biodiversity). Their model employs logarithmic transformations "because the footprints varied up to 10 orders of magnitude", as it is based on no fewer than 976 products, each with 1 kg of product as the unit of analysis. Indeed, their results show that "the four resource footprints accounted for more than 90% of the variation in human health damage" and that "the four resource footprints also accounted for at least 90% of the damage to biodiversity". In the end, the authors "conclude that energy and land footprints provide valuable proxies for the overall environmental damage produced by a particular entity".