Capita Footprint Research Articles

A comparative study on the combination of life cycle assessment and ecological footprints: solar photovoltaic power generation vs. coal power generation in Ningxia

In China, where energy activities, predominantly driven by fossil fuel combustion, account for nearly 90% of the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and coal power alone contributes over 40%, the shift towards carbon neutrality is a critical national ambition. This study conducts a comprehensive comparison of the environmental impacts of solar photovoltaic power generation (SPPG) and coal power, employing both life cycle assessment and ecological footprint analysis. We meticulously analyze the complete lifecycle of SPPG, pinpointing key stages of GHG emissions, and offer nuanced, localized policy recommendations. Our findings indicate that a 1 kWp SPPG module emits 1,601.18 kg of GHGs over its lifespan, equating to 1.35 kg/kW·h per unit of electricity produced—substantially lower than the 4.81 kg/kW·h emitted by coal power, thus highlighting the latter’s heightened environmental detriment. Additionally, this study assesses the ecological footprint of both energy sources in Ningxia. SPPG emerges with an ecological surplus, showcasing a per capita footprint of 0.0342 hm2, compatible with Ningxia’s ecological capacity. In stark contrast, coal power exhibits a sustained ecological deficit over the past 5 years, with a growing per capita footprint of 0.6529 hm2, underscoring its unsustainability. This research provides a detailed comparative analysis of the environmental impacts of SPPG and coal power in Ningxia, offering valuable insights for energy policymakers and industry stakeholders. It underscores the urgent need for industrial restructuring towards more sustainable and renewable energy sources, aligning with China’s broader objectives of environmental preservation and achieving carbon neutrality.

A balancing act: the interplay of food supply chain resilience and environmental sustainability in American cities

Global food systems must be a part of strategies for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, optimal water use, and nitrogen pollution reduction. Insights from research in these areas can inform policies to build sustainable food systems yet limited work has been done to build understanding around whether or not sustainability efforts compete with supply chain resilience. This study explores the interplay between food supply resilience and environmental impacts in US cities, within the context of global food systems’ contributions to GHG emissions, water use, and nitrogen pollution. Utilizing county-level agricultural data, we assess the water use, GHG emissions, and nitrogen losses of urban food systems across the US, and juxtapose these against food supply resilience, represented by supply chain diversity. Our results highlight that supply chain resilience and sustainability can simultaneously exist and are not necessarily in competition with each other. We also found a significant per capita footprint in the environmental domains across Southern cities, specifically those along the Gulf Coast and southern Great Plains. Food supply chain resilience scores ranged from 0.18 to 0.69, with lower scores in the southwest and Great Plains, while northeastern and Midwestern regions demonstrated higher resilience. We found several cities with high supply chain resilience and moderate or low environmental impacts as well as areas with high impacts and low resilience. This study provides insights into potential trade-offs and opportunities for creating sustainable urban food systems in the US, underscoring the need for strategies that consider both resilience and environmental implications.

Supporting national-level policies for sustainable consumption in Portugal: A socio-economic Ecological Footprint analysis

National level Ecological Footprint studies have highlighted disparities among countries. This assessment has proved essential to accurately characterize ecological impacts to specific countries but often ignore the heterogeneity within national spaces. Population groups within a country engage in different behaviors and consumption patterns that have a distinct impact on the environment. Understanding the contribution of each group and decomposing their consumption of distinct products is critical to helping environmental organizations and policy makers design more efficient policies and communication strategies that will change critical patterns of human demand. In the current study, national household consumption is split into different population groups corresponding to four particular socio-economic dimensions: main sources of income, age, number of members in the household, and levels of education of the population. The aim is to identify critical groups to provide better ground to generate targeted policies that can achieve better environmental results. Results highlight how diverse ecological impacts can occur among distinct population groups, with the highest per capita Footprint values found in households with higher education level, smaller size and those living from Capital/Property Transfers. These results constitute a new possibility to analyze the impact of policies that tackle specific behaviors of distinct population groups.

Carbon footprint analysis of household consumption in greater Guadalajara reveal stark socio-spatial inequalities

Household consumption drives more than 65% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, most governments plan to meet the Paris Agreement based on production-based accounting (PBA), neglecting lifecycle emissions embodied in trade and consumption, as well as socio-spatial inequalities. This is a sub-city consumption-based accounting (CBA) analysis of Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (MAG), grounded on Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output using EXIOBASE 3.8.1, combined with Mexico's 2018 Consumer Expenditure Survey. The main objective is to explain the CO2e footprint of MAG's households, identifying emission hotspots and socio-spatial inequalities. This household CBA estimate shows MAG emitted a total of 23.35 MtCO2e during 2018, at least 26.6% higher than the local Climate Action Plan (CPA) territorial PBA estimate, and 121% higher for food. The average per capita footprint is 4.52 tCO2e, 40% higher than the average Mexican and 61% higher than the recommended level of 2.8 tCO2e/cap-yr to align with 1.5 °C pathways by 2030. However, 26% of the MAG population, mostly low-income households, is below this level. Conversely, highest incomes and per capita CO2e footprints are concentrated in Zapopan and Guadalajara, with 64% of total emissions despite hosting 55% population together. Further, income decile X reach 35% of the total emissions with 13% of the population. If left unchecked, MAG's footprints might increase with the trends of urbanization, inequality, higher consumption, and smaller households, as we find larger households associate with lower footprints. We confirm the need to complement CAP with CBA approach and increase socio-spatial resolution to unlock demand-side solutions that leverage on the interplay between urban, socioeconomic, and technical factors.

Testing the Stochastic Convergence of Ecological Indicators in BRICS in the Perspective of Public Health.

This paper assesses the stochastic convergence of relative per capita ecological footprints within BRICS countries over the period 1961–2017 in the field of Public Health. Our initiatives have targeted ecological Indicator and health behaviors. Using the local Whittle estimator and some of its variants we assess whether relative per capita ecological footprints are long memory processes which, although highly persistent, may revert to their mean/trend in the long run thereby indicating evidence of stochastic convergence, or divergent processes in nutshell. Furthermore, we test whether (possibly) slow convergence or the complete lack of it may be the result of structural changes to the deterministics of each of the relative per capita footprint series by means of the tests of Berkes et al. (1) and Mayoral (2). For the ease of comparison, this paper assesses the stochastic convergence of relative per capita ecological capacities for BRICS as well. Our results show relatively strong evidences against stochastic convergence of ecological footprints. Furthermore, with regard to China and Russia, our results also decisively indicate that a slow or lack of convergence is the results of a structural break in the relative per capita ecological footprint series. However, our empirical researches support stochastic convergence of relative per capita ecological capacities for BRICS. In addition, we can conclude whether the per capita ecological footprints converge or not is dependent on the level of economic development, and the stochastic convergence occurs in those rich countries more probably, indicating that public health is becoming a more serious concern in developing countries.

Ageing society in developed countries challenges carbon mitigation

Populations in developed countries are ageing. However, the impact of senior citizens’ consumption on global carbon mitigation is poorly understood. Here we find that senior citizens have played a leading role in driving up GHG emissions in the past decade and are on the way to becoming the largest contributor. Considering the greenhouse gas footprint of household consumption across age groups in 32 developed countries, the senior contribution to national total consumption-based emissions increased from 25.2% to 32.7% between 2005 and 2015. Seniors in the United States and Australia have the highest per capita footprint, twice the Western average. The trend is mainly due to changes in expenditure patterns of seniors. The increasing carbon footprint of senior citizens will probably drive domestic production yet have limited effects on international carbon leakage. The demographic change poses more challenges in local mitigation and calls for deeper public mitigation efforts.

Provincial nitrogen footprints highlight variability in drivers of reactive nitrogen emissions in Canada

Nitrogen (N) footprints are one method to quantify consumer driven reactive nitrogen (Nr) emissions. Canada is a highly urbanized yet economically natural resource-dependent country, providing an illustrative case study to examine attribution of Nr emissions to per capita consumption, either domestically or abroad. Yet, considered only at the national scale, N footprints may obscure absolute and relative contributions of local drivers to Nr emissions. We apply a top-down N footprint approach drawing from national N budgets, emissions inventories, and agricultural statistics to estimate sub-national (provincial) drivers of Nr emissions across Canada. We calculate per capita provincial Nr footprints from four primary sectors in 2018: (a) crop production, (b) animal production, (c) wastewater treatment, and (d) fossil fuel burning. We estimate that Canada’s total N footprint is 995.7 Gg Nr yr−1, which equates to an average per capita footprint nationally of 27.1 kg Nr capita−1 yr−1. The largest national contributions come from a few key (sub)sectors, including transport, beef consumption, and wastewater treatment. Provincial per capita N footprints vary widely, with the largest (Saskatchewan 50.3 kg Nr cap−1 yr−1) more than double the smallest (Ontario 22.0 kg Nr cap−1 yr−1). Most variation across provinces is due to the fossil fuels sector, including emissions from energy generation and the oil and gas industry. We therefore compare our top-down approach for the fossil fuels sector with bottom-up N footprints and territorial emissions methodologies. Per capita N emissions vary considerably across these approaches. For example, Alberta’s per-capita fossil fuel Nr emissions are 45.9, 23.0, and 6.3 kg Nr cap−1 yr−1 using territorial, top-down and bottom-up footprint approaches, respectively. This analysis demonstrates the challenges of attributing Nr emission for export-oriented economies. Our study provides novel insights on sub-national drivers of Nr emissions, emphasizing the need to consider how heterogeneous geographic contexts contribute to national N footprints.

Mapping the environmental footprints of nations partnering the Belt and Road Initiative

Over the past few years, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by China has made a notable contribution to the rapid growth of cross-border trade. This however has been accompanied by unexpected burden shifting of resource extractions and environmental emissions to less developed countries. Given that little attention has been paid to the trade-embodied resources and emissions throughout the BRI, this paper, for the first time, accounts for the water, land, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus footprints of 65 BRI nations and traces the flows embodied in international trade between the BRI and remaining 124 economies by employing a global multi-regional input–output model. Overall, distribution of the BRI's environmental footprints shows strong spatial heterogeneity, amongst China, India and Russia have the highest total environmental footprints. Furthermore, reverse patterns of spatial distribution can be observed between the total and per capita footprints of BRI nations. When it comes to the global scale, the BRI as a whole is found to be a net exporter of trade-embodied flows except for virtual water. Remarkably, 29% of the BRI nations experience a role transition in supply chains across scales, either from net exporters on the BRI level to net importers on the global level, or in reverse. Our findings provide a holistic picture of environmental footprints at scales ranging from single nations, regions, BRI, and even globe, highlighting the significance of a global view in finding ways to tackle environmental challenges and fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals throughout the BRI countries by 2030.

Measuring the impacts of suburbanization with ecological footprint calculations

In this paper we present a complex Ecological Footprint (EF) analysis of one of the largest metropolitan regions in post-socialist East Central Europe, the Budapest Metropolitan Region. Our overall goal is to use both top-down and bottom-up approaches and measure the changes of footprint at a metropolitan scale between 2003 and 2013. Our specific objective is to explore how the spatial rearrangements of wealth, density and consumption influence the spatiotemporal changes of EF. The top-down (compound) calculations indicate growing footprint values both in Hungary and in the Budapest Metropolitan Region in the investigated period. However, household-level hybrid (component-based) calculations revealed decreasing footprint values for Hungary both in absolute and relative terms, and a growth for the metropolitan region. This finding suggests growing income disparities within the country. The indirect (consumption embedded) components of EF findings show that in the core city footprint values are higher due to higher disposable income. However, there is a gradual catching up in the suburban zone as younger and more affluent households arrive. On the other hand, direct per capita footprint values decreased in Budapest and grew in the suburbs between 2003 and 2013, mainly due to a higher heating footprint.

The hidden potential of urban horticulture

Urban areas offer considerable potential for horticultural food production, but questions remain about the availability of space to expand urban horticulture and how to sustainably integrate it into the existing urban fabric. We explore this through a case study which shows that, for a UK city, the space potentially available equates to more than four times the current per capita footprint of commercial horticulture. Results indicate that there is more than enough urban land available within the city to meet the fruit and vegetable requirements of its population. Building on this case study, we also propose a generic conceptual framework that identifies key scientific, engineering and socio-economic challenges to, and opportunities for, the realization of untapped urban horticultural potential. Many cities have enough space to satisfy their population’s demand for fruits and vegetables. A conceptual framework based on the city of Sheffield, United Kingdom, highlights key challenges and opportunities for the realization of untapped urban horticultural potential.

Sustainable Diets and Meat Consumption Reduction in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Colombia

The growing demand for meat and animal products in emerging economies has become a concern given its environmental and health impacts. The sustainable diets approach has emerged to address the multidimensional challenge of reaching a context-based diet that minimizes negative environmental impacts, provides health and nutrition to all segments of the population, and is affordable and coherent with the local culture and traditions. The aim of this study was to explore the prospects for meat consumption reduction and challenges encompassing the environmental, and health spheres. In order to do so, we analyzed: (1) The current carbon and water per capita footprints for two animal-based options and two plant-based options; and (2) the contribution of each food alternative to the local dietary reference intakes based on average per capita daily consumption and significant differences among the nutrient values for each food alternative through a two proportion Z-test. Our results show that the annual per capita carbon and water footprints for beef were higher compared to other alternatives, despite a higher per capita consumption of chicken. Also, our findings reveal that the average consumption of beef and chicken contributes 39% of the maximum recommended daily intake for cholesterol and 61% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein in the country. Finally, relevant promoting forces and barriers related to meat consumption reduction were identified based on the two dimensions evaluated. This study calls for a joint effort to make changes in public policy, food systems, and consumer education.

Optimization of the environmental performance of food diets in Peru combining linear programming and life cycle methods

The improvement of diets from a nutritional and health perspective has been a critical policy objective in developing nations for the past few decades. However, the current stress that human populations are exerting on the planet has made it important to assess diets using environmental indicators, such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, the main objective of the current study was to propose a methodology in which Life Cycle Assessment results linked to dietary patterns in Peru were combined with nutritional and economic data to optimize diets. For this, a linear programming model was built in which the environmental, nutritional and economic information on a set of 25 dietary patterns in Peru were optimized in order to achieve the environmentally best-performing diet that complies with economic and nutritional standards. The result of the proposed linear program allowed understanding the amount of each individual food product that should be consumed in each city that satisfies all the restrictions included in the model in order to attain the lowest GHG emissions possible. Results demonstrated that GHG reductions in food diets can be attained through optimization. For instance, in the case of Lima the obtained reduction was 6%, lowering the annual per capita footprint linked to food diets to 690 kg CO2eq, as compared to the current value of 736 kg CO2eq. From an economic perspective, results show that there are important disparities between cities in terms of increasing or decreasing prices of the market basket. Considering that in most areas of the country food purchase accounts for approximately 50% of household expenditure, it is plausible to assume that food choice is a main carrier to achieve GHG emission mitigations. In this context, the method constitutes a useful tool for policy-makers to push forward joint regulations to improve health-related issues linked to the food diet and food choice together with recommendations to lower the climatic impact of diets.

Potential net primary production footprint of agriculture: A global trade analysis

AbstractAgriculture is one of the most important sources of biomass for human society but increasingly contributes to anthropogenic degradation of ecosystems through negative impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, climate change, and ecosystem services. Here we estimate NPPpot agricultural footprint, that is, the level of appropriation of potential net primary production (NPPpot) by global cropland and human‐made pastures from the consumer responsibility (footprint) perspective and reveal the role of international trade. To quantify the NPPpot agricultural footprint, we utilize environmentally extended multi‐regional input–output analysis to attribute the terrestrial potential NPP altered by global cropland and human‐made pastures to the final consumers responsible for pulling the supply chains. We identify the NPPpot of geographically specific cropland area of 186 agricultural crops in 236 countries and we track each of those crops through the global web of international trade and supply chains to the point of final consumption. We show that human society appropriates 20% (13 petagrams of carbon per year) of global potential net primary production by the transformation of natural ecosystems into cropland and human‐made pastures. International trade accounts for 23% of global NPPpot footprint of agriculture. While the two and half billion people living in China and India (the two countries with lowest NPPpot agricultural footprint per capita) appropriate about 16% of the global NPPpot agricultural footprint of cropland and human‐made pastures, the same share is appropriated by only 360 million people living in countries with the highest per capita footprint.

The potential of behavioural change for climate change mitigation: a case study for the European Union

Mainstream literature on climate change concentrates overwhelmingly on technological solutions for this global long-term problem, while a change towards climate-friendly behaviour could play a role in emission reduction and has received little attention. This paper focuses on the potential climate mitigation by behavioural change in the European Union (EU) covering many behavioural options in food, mobility and housing demand which do not require any personal up-front investment. We use the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), capturing both their direct and indirect implications in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Our results indicate that modest to rigorous behavioural change could reduce per capita footprint emissions by 6 to 16%, out of which one fourth will take place outside the EU, predominantly by reducing land use change. The domestic emission savings would contribute to reduce the costs of achieving the internationally agreed climate goal of the EU by 13.5 to 30%. Moreover, many of these options would also yield co-benefits such as monetary savings, positive health impacts or animal wellbeing. These results imply the need for policymakers to focus on climate education and awareness programs more seriously and strategically, making use of the multiple co-benefits related with adopting pro-environmental behaviour. Apart from that, the relevance of behavioural change in climate change mitigation implies that policy-informing models on climate change should include behavioural change as a complement or partial alternative to technological change.

Trends of natural resource footprints in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries

The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have experienced dramatic economic expansions during the last couple of decades. However, such a rapid development induced a large consumption of natural resources, leading to serious environmental issues. Under such a circumstance, this study calculates the resource footprints of biomass, fossil fuel, minerals and water in BRIC countries for the years of 1995 and 2008 by employing a global, multi-regional input–output model based on the World Input–Output Database (WIOD) and extended by material extraction data. Trends in BRIC's resource footprints and consumption-based resource productivity were presented and compared. The results show that about one third of global resources were extracted to satisfy the consumption of BRIC countries, of which China had the highest footprint. During 1995–2008, per capita resource footprints in BRIC countries had increased faster than the world average, especially for China. However, BRIC's overall per capita footprint was still below the world average, with India as one of the lowest in the world. Most components of resource footprints in BRIC countries were lower than their domestic resource extractions, indicating that the dramatic economic growth was mainly based on domestic resource extractions. China's overall resource footprint increased faster than its domestic extraction (DE), while Brazil's footprint growth rate can catch up with its DE. This study also reveals that Russia's resource productivity was the highest among all the BRIC countries, followed by Brazil. A large gap on resource productivity existed among the BRIC countries, especially for fossil fuels and minerals. Policy implications from this study suggest that the BRIC countries should have more rational urban plans, gradually substitute renewable energy for fossil fuels, develop circular economy and initiate various capacity building projects.

Compartmentalization of polyomavirus KI in digestive and respiratory tracts

Carbon footprint is intricately related with the consumption and lifestyle pattern of individuals. The transport sector is one of the major sectors that effects lifestyle in a significant way and is the major contributor towards the city emissions. This paper attempts to estimate the carbon footprint arising from household’s use of road transport in the city of Kolkata across various income categories. The objective is to see how the footprint changes across income categories and also what factors drive changes in the footprint values across the defined income categories. The study has been based on primary surveys done across the city of Kolkata by choosing about 500 households across various income classes defined. Estimation of carbon footprint shows a clear picture of the relation between people’s affluence and the average per capita footprint. It clearly shows that per capita footprint from transport use increases with income. Further results show that income, vehicle ownership and per capita transport expenditure has significant and positive impact on per capita footprint of households from road transport use.

The application of the Ecological Footprint in two Irish urban areas: Limerick and Belfast

The ecological footprint is now a widely accepted indicator of sustainable development. Footprinting translates resource consumption into the land area required to sustain it, and allows for an average per capita footprint for a region or nation to be compared with the global average. This paper reports on a project in which footprints were calculated for two Irish cities, namely Belfast in Northern Ireland and Limerick in the Republic of Ireland for the year 2001. As is frequently the case at sub-national scale, data quality and availability were often problematic, and in general data gaps were filled by means of population proxies or national averages. A range of methods was applied to convert resource flows to land areas. Both footprints suggest that the lifestyles of citizens of the cities use several times more land than their global share, as has been found for other cities.

A household carbon footprint calculator for islands: Case study of the United States Virgin Islands

Island regions are at a heightened level of vulnerability to climate change impacts and recently a great degree of political attention has been given to planning low-carbon economic strategies for Small Island Developing States (SIDS). To develop useful mitigation strategies, an understanding of greenhouse gas emissions currently attributable to various social sectors is necessary. We use consumption-based life cycle accounting techniques to assess the carbon footprint of typical households within the US Virgin Islands. We find the average carbon footprint in the territory to be 13tCO2eperyear per capita, roughly 35% less than the average US per capita footprint. Also, electricity and food are much larger contributors to total footprint than in the US. Results highlight scope for behavioral and technological changes that could significantly reduce the footprint. The model has been developed into an open access online tool for educational purposes.

Degrowth, American Style: No Impact Man and Bourgeois Primitivism

participants from nearly 30 countries concluded that the ‘‘decoupling between ecological degradation and economic growth appears insufficient after years of important eco-efficiency improvements.’’ Collectively they issued a declaration that called for ‘‘a paradigm shift from the general and unlimited pursuit of economic growth to a concept of ‘right-sizing’ the global and national economies.’’ This ‘‘rightsizing,’’ according to the declaration, was not a one-size-fits-all prescription. ‘‘In countries where [the] per capita footprint is greater than the sustainable global level, right-sizing implies a reduction to this level within a reasonable timeframe.’’ But, continued the declaration, ‘‘In countries where severe poverty remains, right-sizing implies increasing consumption by those in poverty as quickly as possible, in a sustainable way, to a level adequate for [a] decent life, following locally determined poverty-reduction paths rather than externally imposed development policies.’’ At the same time that conference attendees were working out the principles enshrined in the Degrowth declaration, author Colin Beavan was in the middle of filming No Impact Man: The Documentary, 2 a companion to his book No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process (Beavan 2009). Both book and movie were based on Beavan’s ‘‘No Impact Man Project,’’ a blog he started in November 2006. The blog, as with the book and movie, chronicled the exploits of one upscale, Manhattan family’s efforts to transform their consumption patterns, and thus their social and natural relations, in order to ‘‘save the planet.’’ Beavan sought a way out of their current lives he described in an early blog entry as ‘‘typical convenience-addicted, New York City take-out slaves.’’ Through reduced consumption he hoped to find ‘‘a middle path that is neither unconsciously consumerist nor self-consciously anti-materialist.’’ Beavan, unlike the conference attendees in Paris, put his faith in a version of environmentalism he

The Economy, Military, and Ecologically Unequal Exchange Relationships in Comparative Perspective: A Panel Study of the Ecological Footprints of Nations, 1975–2000

The authors employ multiple theories within a political economy framework to examine the structural predictors of the per capita ecological footprints of nations. Engaged theories include ecological modernization, treadmill of production, treadmill of destruction, and ecologically unequal exchange. Results of cross-national panel regression models indicate that the treadmill of production in the context of economic development increases per capita footprints, which contradicts general claims of ecological modernization theory. Similarly, the treadmill of destruction in the mode of military expenditures per soldier positively affects per capita footprints. Those with relatively higher levels of exports sent to economically developed and militarily powerful nations experience suppressed consumption levels, and these effects are especially pronounced and increasingly so for less-developed countries, many of which consume resources well below globally sustainable thresholds. The latter sets of findings support key elements of ecologically unequal exchange theory. Ultimately, this research suggests that a political economy framework that considers domestic attributes and structural relationships in particular contexts is quite useful for understanding the consumption-based environmental harms of nations.