The analysis in this report focuses on selected production-consumption systems, which link environmental, social and economic systems across the world - generating earnings, supporting ways of living, and meeting consumer demands - and also account for much of humanity's burden on the environment. production and consumption are addressed together because they are highly interdependent. Only by adopting an integrated perspective is it possible to get a full understanding of these systems: the incentives that structure them, the functions they perform, the ways system elements interact, the impacts they generate, and the opportunities to reconfigure them.
The overall objective is to highlight ways that production-consumption systems can be adjusted to augment societal benefits and minimise societal costs. Assessing the environmental and socio-economic impacts of highly sophisticated, global production-consumption systems presents significant knowledge challenges. Whereas there are established indicators to track environmental pressures from production in Europe, indicators that capture the pressures embedded in imported raw materials and goods are far less mature. Nevertheless, the data available allow an interesting picture to emerge from the drivers that shape production-consumption systems, the (positive and negative) pressures and impacts caused by these systems, and the types of tools that can help to mitigate these pressures and impacts.