• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.118-125
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• 2012

World population has increased rapidly following the industrial revolution, reaching 7 billion in 2012. Several forecasts estimate that this number will rise to about 8 billion in 2025. Improvements of living standards in developing nations have also raised resource and energy demands worldwide. In consequences, human beings have faced many global and urgent problems, such as global warming, water and food shortages, resource and energy crises, and so on. Many ocean utilization technologies for avoiding or reducing such big problems have been developed, for examples $CO_2$ ocean sequestration, seawater desalination, artificial upwelling, deepwater mining, and ocean energies. It is important, however, to assess such technologies from the viewpoints of sustainability and public acceptancy, since the aims of those technologies are to develop sustainable social systems rather than conventional ones based on fossil resources. Inclusive Marine Pressure Assessment and Classification Technology Research Committee (generally called IMPACT Research Committee) of Japan Society of Naval Architects and Ocean Engineers, has proposed Inclusive Impact Index "Triple I" as an indicator, which can predict both environmental sustainability and economical feasibility, in order to assess the ocean utilization technologies from the viewpoints of sustainability and public acceptancy. This index was considered by combining Ecological Footprint and Environmental Risk Assessment. The Ecological Footprint and the Environmental Risk Assessment are introduced in the first part of this paper. Then the concept and the structure of the Triple I are explained in the second part of this paper. Finally, the economy-ecology conversion factor in Triple I accounting is considered.