An Integrated Environmental and Economic Modeling Framework for Technological Transitions

There is an increasing demand for models that address both environment and economy, and that also estimate or forecast the impacts of introducing new and markedly different technologies from those already existing in the systems under study. Because most conventional models are calibrated to recent data characterizing current economic structure and conditions, their standard turn-key operation will need to be replaced by more comprehensive algorithms and procedures designed to explicitly accommodate shifts in technology and economic structure. This paper lays out one viable alternative for integrating environmental and economic modeling frameworks, and focuses specifically on one of the major challenges to this kind of modeling, that of dovetailing life cycle assessment and input-output modeling frameworks. (Acknowledgements: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1235684 and USDA NIFA Award 2012-67009-19660.)