Environmental Footprints and Resource Flows for Sustainable Development

Global supply chains have created a growing gap between where natural resources are used and where environmental consequences are felt. A country that imports water-intensive crops, for example, effectively outsources its water stress to the exporting region. Concepts such as environmental footprints and virtual resource flows have been widely developed to quantify these impacts and trace their pathways across regions. These approaches have been applied to assess water use, carbon emissions, land use, and other environmental pressures associated with production and consumption systems. Most studies examine individual environmental pressures (e.g., carbon or water footprints) in isolation, with few integrating multiple pressures or connecting results to policy implications. Such perspectives are increasingly relevant for examining the sustainability of agri-food systems, global trade networks, and resource governance. They also provide valuable insights for supporting integrated strategies that align environmental management with sustainable development goals.This Research Topic seeks to address gaps in existing literature, including the disconnect between footprint results and concrete policy instruments, the lack of multi-pressure integration within footprint analyses, and the insufficient treatment of agri-food burden shifting. It focuses on: (i) how virtual flows of water, land, carbon, and biodiversity impacts influence regional and global sustainability outcomes, (ii) examining governance frameworks, policy mechanisms, and decision-making processes related to environmental footprints and resource flows, and (iii) designing intervention pathways that reduce environmental inequalities and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as consumption-side policies, transboundary compensation mechanisms, or tracing environmental pressures along supply chains. Submissions should use quantitative footprint or flow methods, or critically evaluate such methods; purely conceptual or narrative reviews without a systematic approach are not in scope.We welcome interdisciplinary contributions from ecology, environmental sciences, social sciences, economics, and management science. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:• Quantification and comparison of multiple environmental footprints (e.g., carbon, water, land) within a single analytical framework• Analysis of virtual resource flows in global and regional production-consumption systems• Assess how agri-food systems redistribute environmental pressures and governance responsibilities across borders• Integration of environmental footprint perspectives with biodiversity and ecosystem services assessment• Explore how local resource extraction links to national or global consumption patterns• Examine how governance frameworks can address environmental burden shifting between regions• Analyze how environmental footprint evidence can inform policy design and governance approaches, such as consumption-based emissions targets, transboundary compensation, or sustainability certification.• Evaluate the effectiveness, equity, and implementation challenges of environmental governance Topic editors: Li Chai, Dan Yan, Sisi Meng Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80436/environmental-footprints-and-resource-flows-for-sustainable-development