In the past decades, high-income countries have started to offshore energy-intensive manufacturing chains, focusing on activities with high value added. Meanwhile, the rapid acceleration of the industrialization process in states like China, India and Brazil allowed these emerging economies to win a large share of the global market by the means of an intensive and unprecedented manufacturing production. International supply chains caused the displacement of entire industrial sectors towards lower-income countries, and thus environmental and social impacts relocated as well. Energy use and emissions associated with each productive step are strictly related to the technology and energy mix of the country where it takes place: the industry sector in low-income nations tends to be less environmentally regulated, and this may result in a rise of global impacts.