Martin Bruckner on value allocation
From TELECOUPLING WEBINAR #1: The FABIO model with Dr. Martin Bruckner · · Global Land Programme
“For attribution of responsibility, I personally prefer value allocation because the higher value product drives production, whereas for studying global physical flows of commodities or embodied energy, mass allocation should be used as it reflects actual mass flows.”
On , Martin Bruckner, Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer at EURONET WORLDWIDE INC, spoke about value allocation during TELECOUPLING WEBINAR #1: The FABIO model with Dr. Martin Bruckner on Global Land Programme.
About Martin Bruckner
Dr. Martin Bruckner presented the FABIO (Food and Agriculture Biomass Input-Output) model during a September 2020 webinar hosted by the Global Land Programme's working group on telecoupling. He described FABIO as a multi-regional input-output database covering 191 countries and 130 commodities, including agricultural products, crops, processed items, and livestock. Bruckner noted that the database uses both mass and value allocation, and stated his personal preference for value allocation when attributing responsibility, as he said higher-value products drive production, while mass allocation reflects actual physical flows. He mentioned that the model's paper had been published and that the database would be made available online within weeks, with codes for building hybrid tables accessible on GitHub. Bruckner also discussed current applications of FABIO, including an analysis of international cotton supply chains and embodied water stress, which he said showed that only one-third of the cotton harvest is lint while the rest is used as animal feed. He stated that the team had funding to continue maintaining and updating the database, and that it could be updated as new FAO data is published. Bruckner added that no uncertainty analysis had been conducted yet, but that animal products were expected to have higher uncertainties, and that the team planned to provide more information on uncertainties to users. He also mentioned ongoing collaboration with the Stockholm Environment Institute on sub-national versions of the database.