Environmental Household Accounts with Waste Discharge Using the Waste Input-Output Table

Abstract

Japanese national energy consumption increased 3.4 times from FY1965 (1,085 peta cal) to FY2001 (3,676 peta cal). During the same period, household energy consumption increased by 4.9 times, from 107 to 522 peta cal (The Energy Data and Modeling Center (EDMC) 2003). One major cause of such a rapid increase in household consumption is electric appliances, that is household electricity consumption has increased 9.3 times from 24 to 227 peta cal; our convenient everyday life is based on increasing energy consumption, inevitably linked with ecological degradation. Therefore, when we talk about ecology, our lifestyle must also be reviewed in that context. Recently, UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) has proposed the concept of “Sustainable Consumption” besides “Sustainable Production.” (United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) 2002) It says that sustainable consumption “is the final step in progressive widening of the horizons of pollution prevention,” and that “action focused on consumption has highlighted the need to address the creation of new systems of production and consumption.” Supplier's efforts towards ecological products will be meaningless if people do not use them and stick to their consumption habits.In our life, there are several ways to do the same thing, but one of them can be more ecological than the others. However, no method has yet been developed to enable quantitative evaluation of the ecological effect of household activities. We need a methodology to analyze consumers' behavior.