Relating five bounded environmental problems to China's household consumption in 2011–2015

• This is the first analysis of China's multiple environmental impacts of household consumption.
• We identify which consumption items should be responsible for environmental impacts.
• There is a trade-off among stimulating household consumption, mitigating different emissions.

With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, China faces a number of serious environmental problems that significantly affect economic and social sustainable development. In this paper we quantify the CO2, SO2, NOx, COD (chemical oxygen demand) and ammonia–nitrogen emissions resulting from household consumption, based on an input–output model used to identify which consumption items appear mainly responsible for environmental impacts and which consumption items can lead to different environmental impacts in 2007. Using a 2007 input–output table, we found that CO2, SO2, COD, NOx, and ammonia–nitrogen emissions from household consumption in 2007 accounted for approximately 42.17%, 33.67%, 33.11%, 28.83% and 30.38% of China's total emissions, respectively. Each environmental impact arises from the consumption of a mix of goods and services. “Agriculture” and “Food and Tobacco Manufacture” consumption contributed more than 50% of COD and ammonia nitrogen emissions; “Electricity and Heating Generation” and “Food and Tobacco Manufacture” accounted for more than 50% of SO2, NOx and CO2 emissions. We classified consumption items into different types, with Type 1 and Type 3 countering each other, illustrating a trade-off between stimulating household consumption, mitigating COD and Ammonia nitrogen emissions and mitigating CO2, SO2 and NOx emissions.