Estimating the dynamic environmental footprints of the global finance and business sector towards sustainable development goals

The global finance and business is a trillion-dollar sector whose final demand drives a significant amount of economic production and services in other sectors through trade systems. As economic production and services have a significant impact on the environment, they play a fundamental role in supporting the global sustainable development goals (SDGs). Despite this, little attention has been paid to environmental impact driven by the final demand of global finance and business sector (i.e., environmental footprint). In this paper, we estimated the carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and particular matter 10 (PM10) footprints of finance and business sector of 187 economies from 2000 to 2016 using a global multi-regional input-output model. Our results show that global environmental footprints peaked 10 years ago, and the latest CO2, SO2 and PM10 footprints are approximately 1371, 8.2 and 6.1 million tons, respectively. We also found that 99% of environmental footprints originate from 20% economy-sectors, and the critical economy-sectors are identified. In addition, policy interventions on environmental intensity, production efficiency and trade network for mitigating the environmental footprints are proposed as well. Our findings provide a holistic and dynamic picture of the environmental footprints of the global finance and business sector.