), leading to undesired environmental impacts in a, more or less, specifically defined geographical area, and time, ranging from local to global.
The basis for the analytical procedures used in ESA studies is the perception of flows of matter and energy associated to causal chains linking human activities to the environmental changes of concern.
The attributional approach, on the other hand, is based on an analysis of the processes needed to fulfil a certain purpose such as the function that a product delivers.
The characteristics were full and attribution approaches, respectively, and the tools and methods were each earlier determined by one unique combination of flow object, spatial boundary and relation to time.
In the CHAINET project, commissioned by the EU Environment and Climate programme, analytical tools for decision making were studied regarding demand and supply of environmental information, while procedural ESA approaches were not covered.