How the energy procurement switching strategies (driven by the Russia-Ukraine conflict) impact the global sustainability? The global sustainability dashboard

Abstract

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has underscored the criticality related to the dependence on energy supply from Russia and the lack of energy autonomy by European countries. To obtain a progressive detachment from the Russian energy supply dependency, European countries have been adopting some measures, aimed at switching the natural gas supply from Russia to other countries, reducing the consumption of natural gas, and replacing energy source typology, e.g., switching from methane to coal or renewable sources. This paper develops a tool based on the Input-Output methodology, named Global Sustainability Dashboard (GSD), designed for assessing the potential consequences of a national strategy aimed at replacing energy source suppliers. GSD adopts 14 indicators to consider the three main sustainability dimensions (i.e., economic, environmental, and social) at both the national and global scale. As an illustrative case, the Italian energy diversification strategy is analyzed, to demonstrate the practical implementation of GSD. Findings are discussed from the numerical perspective.