Land use impacts of industries and products in the Finnish economy: A comparison of three indicators Tuomas Mattila a, *, Jyri Seppa ¨la ¨ a , Ari Nissinen a , Ilmo Ma ¨ enpa ¨a ¨ b a Finnish Environment Institute SYKE, Mechelininkatu 34a, Box 140, FIN-00251 Helsinki, Finland b Thule Institute, Box 7300, University of Oulu, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland article info Article history: Received 1 September 2010 Received in revised form 24 February 2011 Accepted 25 February 2011 Available online 25 March 2011 Keywords: Inputeoutput analysis Ecological footprint Land use Life cycle assessment Net primary production Biodiversity abstract The sustainability aspects of land use were assessed with an environmentally extended inputeoutput model of Finland in 2002. The main economic industries and products causing land use were identified and the impacts were estimated with three indicators: biocapacity, human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) and ecosystem degradation potential (EDP). The results correlated well with expert assessments on the threats to biodiversity, although the influence of animal farming was not clear in all indicators. Most of the domestic land use was caused by final demand outside Finland. Based on a simplified trade balance, Finland was a net exporter of land area, mainly through wood products. Two thirds of the domestic land use was driven by export production. Therefore a regional consumption based approach is not sufficient to mitigate and control the environmental impacts of land use even in a developed country like Finland. ª 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Land use associated impacts, such as habitat degradation, fragmentation and destruction, are identified as the main threats to biodiversity [1]. However, sustainability studies of bioenergy have to a large extent focused on energy and greenhouse gas balances [2] and in some cases on chemical pollution [3]. Indirect land use change, caused by increased demand on agricultural crop land, has been identified as a critical issue, but the focus has been on climate change [2] instead of biodiversity. Other impacts to ecosystems (e.g. soil compaction, loss of biodiversity, reduced produc- tivity, salination) caused by land occupation have been ignored to a large extent. Partially this has been caused by the lack of a consensus on which indicators to use in life cycle impact assessment for land use [4]. Compared to other impacts, land use is a multifaceted environmental issue, as it can be seen as habitat degradation, resource competition or even as an alteration of biogeochemical cycles [5]. The purpose of this study was to identify the main drivers of land use in the Finnish economy and to assess environ- mental implications through a comparison of three indicators. The indicators were applied to an environmentally extended inputeoutput model of the Finnish national economy [6]. The use of inputeoutput analysis of a whole economy, instead of a product specific life cycle assessment, avoided favouring certain indicators due to system boundary selection [7]. Also the relevance of indicators could be compared to the national evaluation of the biodiversity action plan [8] and the IUCN red-list report [9]. While the focus on this study was on Finland, the methods may be applied to other countries in order to analyze the potential impacts of biomass utilization. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: tuomas.mattila@ymparisto.fi (T. Mattila). Available at www.sciencedirect.com http://www.elsevier.com/locate/biombioe biomass and bioenergy 35 (2011) 4781 e4787 0961-9534/$ e see front matter ª 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2011.02.052