tThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has defined a comprehensive method for takinginto account greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions released from different countries. The geographical orproducer-based perspective currently used in the IPCC framework does not consider (and may thereforeencourage) delocalization of production from industrialized to other countries, thus allocating responsi-bility for emissions associated with goods and services, consumed in one country but produced elsewhere,exclusively to the producer. The Environmentally Extended Input–Output (EEIO) analysis has long beenrecognized as a useful tool for attributing GHG emissions or resource use to final consumers in a consis-tent accounting framework. While it is clear that there are several advantages to using a consumer-basedperspective with the EEIO analysis, questions regarding the implementation of this methodology havearisen, and its adoption in dealing with GHGs inventory has so far been limited. Here, we propose aformalization, in order to evaluate GHG emissions associated with goods and services that are tradedinternationally, based on a systemic approach that places the responsibility on consumer countries, andweighs imported and exported goods by applying national carbon intensity factors. The use of theseaggregate indicators is appropriate to have a reference point for a worldwide application of this tool inorder to implement policies for GHG emission reduction.© 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All