Study: Most of Andorra’s environmental impacts are embodied in imports

A study published in Ecological Economics shows that a large share of the environmental impacts linked to Andorra’s consumption takes place outside its borders. The article, “MuSIASEM nexus analysis in post‑industrial societies: Import dependence in Andorra,” is part of Juan Jesús Larrabeiti’s doctoral thesis and was produced with the collaboration of Oriol Travesset of Andorra Recerca i Innovació (AR+I).

Using the MuSIASEM (Multi‑Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism) framework, the researchers quantify resource use and greenhouse‑gas emissions associated with both domestic production and imported goods. The analysis measures labour, land, water and CO2‑equivalent emissions to compare impacts occurring inside Andorra with those embodied in imports.

Andorra is characterised as a post‑industrial economy with a dominant services sector that relies heavily on imports to sustain its living standards. As a result, many material‑ and energy‑intensive production processes — and their environmental pressures — are externalised to other territories rather than occurring on Andorran soil.

The study reports large disparities between domestic and imported impacts. For the energy sector, impacts embodied in imports exceed domestic impacts by factors of roughly: seven times more labour, 40 times more land use, six times more water use and 17 times more greenhouse‑gas emissions. The agricultural sector shows similarly large multipliers: about eight times more labour, 15 times more land, 22 times more water and seven times more emissions linked to imports than to local production.

The authors stress that these imported impacts are largely invisible in national environmental statistics and accounts because they occur beyond the country’s territorial boundary. “Imports generate an environmental impact outside Andorra; our comfort depends on the appropriation of resources from elsewhere,” Larrabeiti says, highlighting the gap between where consumption happens and where environmental pressures are exerted.

Researchers at AR+I note that these findings complicate policy narratives that treat sustainability and security as complementary objectives achievable simply by expanding local production. Accurately assessing a country’s environmental footprint, they argue, requires tracing the impacts embedded in imports as well as those produced domestically.

The paper calls for more comprehensive accounting of transboundary impacts to inform national and regional sustainability strategies and to better align consumption patterns with environmental responsibility.