Environmental overhead of labor (EOL) embodied in trade: The case of 2002 China-U.S. trade

Previous studies on environmental impacts embodied in trade have paid little attention on the impacts of labor, or environmental overhead of labor (EOL). In particular, EOL can occur in both the household consumption of fuels and electricity by workers and in the delivery of products and services consumed by workers. This research defines EOL and quantifies energy and carbon dioxide (CO₂) EOL embodied in the 2002 China-U.S. trade using an integrated environmental input-output model. The results find that the eastbound trade from China to the U.S. uses 28.80 million worker-years in China. This trade corresponds to, an EOL of 466.98 petajouless (PJ) of energy use and 42.50 million metric tons (MMt) of CO₂ emissions. The westbound trade from the U.S. to China on the other hand requires 0.28 million worker-years, associated with an EOL of 87.48 PJ energy and 5.71 MMt of total CO₂ emissions. Further analysis shows China's EOL is dominated by manufacturing while EOL on the U.S. side is primarily from household consumption.