Explaining the Variation in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Between Households: Socioeconomic, Motivational, and Physical Factors

Abstract

Consumption-accounted greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (GHGEs) vary considerably between households. Research originating from different traditions, including consumption research, urban planning, and environmental psychology, have studied different types of explanatory variables and provided different insights into this matter. This study integrates explanatory variables from different fields of research in the same empirical material, including socioeconomic variables (income, household size, sex, and age), motivational variables (proenvironmental attitudes and social norms), and physical variables (dwelling types and geographical distances). A survey was distributed to 2,500 Swedish households with a response rate of 40%. GHGEs were estimated for transport, residential energy, food, and other consumption, using data from both the survey and registers, such as odometer readings of cars and electricity consumption from utility providers. The results point toward the importance of explanatory variables that have to do with circumstances rather than motivations for proenvironmental behaviors. Net income was found to be the most important variable to explain GHGEs, followed by the physical variables, dwelling type, and the geographical distance index. The results also indicate that social norms around GHG-intensive activities, for example, transport, may have a larger impact on a subject's emission level than proenvironmental attitudes. Keywords:consumer behavior energy food industrial ecology greenhouse gas emissions transport

Household carbon footprint patterns by the degree of urbanisation in Europe

“…However, this is compensated by the 6% higher average income in cities. Similar results have been presented before for individual countries (Minx et al 2013, Nässén et al 2015, Ottelin et al 2015, Gill and Moeller 2018.…”

“…Studies from the US have often found a decreasing impact (Shammin et al 2010, Jones and Kammen 2014, whereas studies from developing countries have found the opposite , Seriño 2017. The results from Europe vary, but the majority of the studies have found a small decreasing impact for an increasing degree of urbanisation, for example in the UK (Minx et al 2013), Finland (Ala-Mantila et al 2014), Sweden (Nässén et al 2015) and Germany (Gill and Moeller 2018). Some studies from Finland and Estonia highlight that the impact is largely statistically insignificant (Ottelin et al 2015, Poom and Ahas 2016, Ottelin et al 2018b.…”

What can we learn from consumption-based carbon footprints at different spatial scales? Review of policy implications

“…In contrast, for the US Jones and Kammen (2014) reported the average CBCF to be higher in suburban cities and towns compared to urban core cities. Also, the results of Nässén et al (2015) (in Sweden), and Ala-Mantila et al (2013) and Ottelin et al (2017) (in Finland) indicated that inner urban living has slightly lower, or almost similar, GHG consequences to living in the suburbs.…”

“…In addition to various carbon pricing policies, information dissemination programs are suggested as a policy instrument, particularly in order to change consumer behavior (Bin and Dowlatabadi 2005, Nässén et al 2015, Özbaş et al 2017. Curiously, Nässén and co-authors highlight that promoting pro-environmental attitudes may actually be more important regarding support for climate policy than for consumer behavior, since the impact of the latter is limited.…”

Winners of the 2015 Graedel Prizes: The JIE Best Paper Prizes

“…In the senior author category, the paper by Heller and Keoleian (2015) was ranked first and slightly better than papers by Scanlon and colleagues (2015) and Wen and colleagues (2015). The other papers that were nominated and therefore worth mentioning are specified in the reference list at the end of this article (Ahmad and Derrible 2015;Guignot et al 2015;Haas et al 2015;Hoornweg et al 2015;Liang et al 2015;Meylan et al 2015;Nässén et al 2015;Rambo 2015;Reyna and Chester 2015;Wiedenhofer et al 2015;Xu et al 2015).…”