Living within a One Planet reality: the contribution of personal Footprint calculators

Abstract

During the last 50 years, humanity's Ecological Footprint has increased by nearly 190% indicating a growing unbalance in the human-environment relationship, coupled with major environmental and social changes. Our ability to live within the planet's biological limits requires not only a major rethink in how we produce and distribute 'things', but also a shift in consumption activities. Footprint calculators can provide a framing that communicates the extent to which an individual's daily activities are compatible with our One Planet context. This paper presents the findings from the first international study to assess the value of personal Footprint calculators in guiding individuals towards sustainable consumption choices. It focuses specifically on Global Footprint Network's personal Footprint calculator, and aims to understand the profile of calculator users and assess the contribution of calculators to increasing individual awareness and encouraging sustainable choices. Our survey of 4245 respondents show that 75% of users resided in 10 countries, 54% were aged 18-34 years and had largely used the calculator within an educational context (62%). The calculator was considered a valuable tool for knowledge generation by 91% of users, and 78% found it useful to motivate action. However, only 23% indicated the calculator provided them with the necessary information to make actual changes to their life and reduce their personal Footprint. The paper discusses how and why this personal Footprint calculator has been effective in enhancing individuals' understanding of the environmental impact of their actions, framing the scale of the problem and empowering users to understand the impacts of different lifestyle choices. Those individual-level and system-level changes needed to generate global sustainability outcomes are also discussed. Similar to other calculators, a gap is also identified in terms of this calculator facilitating individuals to convert new knowledge into action.

On the Order and Orientation in Liquid Crystalline Polymer Membranes for Gas Separation

“…However, these technological advances do not come without costs. 1 Besides exploitation of earth's resources, large-scale energy production via incineration of fossil fuels resulted in increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses (CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O) in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. The largest contributing greenhouse gasses CO 2 and CH 4 are present in valuable gas sources such as natural gas, biogas, or in waste streams like flue gasses.…”

Sustainable food transition in Portugal: Assessing the Footprint of dietary choices and gaps in national and local food policies

“…Policy implementation is stronger in the information and awareness dimension, as all six cities have policies or initiatives in place for at least 2 of the 3 investigated parameters. Tools to gather consumers' behavior data and guide consumers through the knowledge-awareness-action journey ( Collins et al, 2020 ), for instance, are available in all cities, such as municipal Ecological Footprint (EF) calculators ( Galli et al, 2020 ) and several awareness campaigns (see Table S5 in the Supplementary Online Material for a detailed description of all the activities developed by each city). Still, lack of awareness from citizens and the difficulty to change the mentality of both the civil society and companies represent major roadblocks for local administrations, which are also not aided by national regulations (e.g., unclear public procurement rules for food).…”

We need a sustainable consumption pattern

“…Such a huge “overshoot” is obviously not sustainable, as we deplete the natural capital that human society depends on at an alarming rate. One of the useful ways the ecological footprint has been visualized and communicated to the public is by means of a free online calculator that individuals can use to calculate their personal “overshoot day” and how many planets would be needed to regenerate global biocapacity if everyone lived like them [4] (Collins, Galli, Hipwood, & Murthy, 2020).…”