EXIOBASE 3: For best in class environmental-economic accounting data. Get insight into global supply-chains and the environmental impacts of consumption.

EXIOBASE 3 provides a time series of environmentally extended multi-regional input‐output (EE MRIO) tables for 44 countries (27 EU member plus 17 major economies) and five rest of the world regions.

EXIOBASE was set up by the EXIOBASE consortium, with XIO Sustainability Analytics now working on providing annual updates to the core economic, energy and emission tables. We welcome any collaborative efforts to further improve the database.

Updates are now being produced annually. Early access to future releases can be provided as part of research collaborations, get in contact if interested. 

A special issue of Journal of Industrial Ecology (Volume 22, Issue 3) describes the build process and some use cases of EXIOBASE 3. This includes the article by Stadler et al. (2018) describing the compilation of EXIOBASE 3. 

To stay updated on database improvements, relevant EXIOBASE studies, and ongoing work, join the EXIOBASE group on LinkedIn. 

Licenses

Please ensure that you have understood the license conditions before use. Note that these conditions are significantly different to the license conditions of earlier versions, such as v3.8.  

Now-casting

The core EXIOBASE 3 model is based on statistical supply and use tables that usually have a 1-2 year time lag. The time-series is expanded (i.e., now-casted) until current years using global trade data and macroeconomic data (IMF), as well as environmental data when available. Caution should be made when using now-casted data, due to the higher levels of data interpolation. 

Capital endogenisation

Capital use matrices are estimated as an auxiliary dataset to these tables. They can be found at Capital use matrices for v3.8.2 and will be shortly updated for more recent versions. In the interim, it is recommended to use the coefficient form of that dataset for any work that requires capital endogenisation for v3.9.

Processing the database

For a general introduction to environmentally extended input-output modelling, we refer to:  

• UN Handbook on Supply and Use Tables and Input Output-Tables with Extensions and Applications
• Input-Output Analysis by Miller & Blair 

The database is too large to handle in a standard spreadsheet software (e.g., Excel), and we recommend using programming languages such as Python, R, or Matlab. The open-source python package PyMRIO can be used to download and parse the database directly from Zenodo and do input-output analysis.

If you are interested in learning more about EXIOBASE or input-output modelling in general (including practical use of PyMRIO, how to develop custom models), please reach out.

Earlier versions and documentation

Some previous versions (3.7, 3.8) are also available on Zenodo. The even earlier public releases of the data (EXIOBASE v3.3 and v3.4) are available on request. We recommend, however, using the latest version due to significant updates of the economic data as well as major differences in energy, emissions, water and land use accounts. 

The first documentation of EXIOBASE 3 was done via deliverables of the DESIRE project - these can now be accessed here.

The country disaggregated version, EXIOBASE 3rx, is available on Zenodo. It is no longer continued, but including more regions in the EXIOBASE classification is ongoing work. Reach out to exiobase-support@googlegroups.com, if interested in collaboration on integrating specific countries. 

Concordance files are available here.

Future Updates and Announcements

Updates are now being produced annually, and a beta version of 3.11 is already under development. To stay updated, join the EXIOBASE group on LinkedIn and/or reach out to exiobase-support@googlegroups.com. 

Repository content and structure 

The table below provides an overview of main elements of EXIOBASE and the groups of satellite accounts available.

Updating the extensions is ongoing work, but we welcome any collaborative efforts. 

• Z.txt – Matrix/inter-industry flows (transaction/flow matrix).
• Y.txt – Final demand.
• x.txt – Gross/total output.
• unit.txt – Units of the flow data.

• air_emissions
• employment
• energy
• factor_inputs
• materials
• land
• nutrients
• water

• F.txt – Extensions for intermediate sectors.
• F_Y.txt – Extensions for final demand.
• unit.txt – Units for each extension.