Sustainability at multiple scales: Interactions between environment, economic and social indicators at the country, city and manufacturing facility scale

he simplicity of the Environmental Kuznets (EKC) curve concept motivated this study of the relationships between environmental, economic and social indicators at the country, city/regional and manufacturing facility scale. The study builds on almost 20 years of research on the EKC, which has shown conflicting results for confirmation of the EKC hypothesis that the environment first degrades, then improves, with increasing economic wealth.;Most EKC studies have been performed at the country scale, though over the last several years studies have cropped up at other scales: country-group, state-province, city-county, lake-watershed, firm, household and individual scale. Across the board, results have been mixed. Approximately one-third of EKC studies have confirmed the hypothesis; one-third of the studies have rejected it; and, one-third have shown mixed results.;This research effort includes analysis at three scales: country, city/regional and manufacturing facility. Most EKC studies use country-scale income or GDP as the primary economic indicator of interest; this study uses country-scale GDP (Purchasing Price Parity-adjusted) for country scale analysis and experiments with using city/regional GDP at the local scale. For the purposes of manufacturing facility analysis, a country-scale "market maturity" indicator commonly used by The Coca-Cola Company (the corporation studied here) is employed.;The manufacturing facility scale analysis is new territory in the EKC literature. Firm-scale studies in the past have been just that, evaluating firm environmental performance across a specific industry. This effort evaluates manufacturing facility performance within the same firm across a set of 21 countries of particular interest to the corporation.;This study is unique in a few other ways. Including multiple scales in the same study is not common in the EKC literature. Typically, a study would focus on one or a few indicators at one specific scale. The actual environmental and social outcome variables used here are also somewhat unique. In additional to traditional pollution indicators, life expectancy at the country-scale is used, as well as energy usage at the country scale and water usage at the city/regional scale. A biological oxygen demand concentration for the country scale is constructed; this is evaluated alongside renewable water resources per capita.;Considering the three scales together, a mix of traditional pollution (i.e., concentration) measures is used with consumption and/or efficiency-based indicators to determine how patterns might be similar or different among the different types of indicators.;Generally speaking, the results reported here will fall into the "mixed" bucket relative to the 20 years of existing EKC literature; however, there are a few key learnings. Figures 1 through 3 show the expected results (stylized shapes for expected; actual shapes of calculated log values for results). First of all, pollution indicators (particulate matter and biological oxygen demand) at the country-scale appear to be improving at the highest levels of income over the time period evaluated here. Life expectancy and access to water and sanitation systems are also improving at higher levels of wealth. However, CO2 emissions and energy usage per capita are increasing, and renewable water resources per capita are declining. Of 8 total indicators, only one (BOD) follows an inverted-U pattern (the EKC hypothesis would hope that half or more might). Surprising results are shown for life expectancy and access to improved water and sanitation systems. While all generally increase with increasing GDP, the relationships are not monotonic -- meaning there is unexpected curvature in the patterns. There are "dips" in all three variables between around...