Can carbon footprint serve as proxy of the environmental burden from urban consumption patterns?

Kalbar, Pradip P.; Birkved, Morten; Karmakar, Subhankar; Nygaard, Simon; Hauschild, Michael Zwicky

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.11.022

Cited by 46 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…when the processes include both impacts that are independent from climate change potential such as in renewable energy production and those that are dependent on climate change potential such as fossil fuel energy production), the findings of this study indicate that it is necessary to apply more sophisticated processing method for obtaining single score. This confirms the findings of Laurent et al (2010) and Kalbar et al (2016b), that climate change indicator is not always indicative of overall impacts for complex systems. Thus, our study demonstrates the advantage of the TOPSIS method for obtaining single scores in cases where midpoint impacts do not all correlate well with climate change.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Life cycle based dynamic assessment coupled with multiple criteria decision analysis: A case study of determining an optimal building insulation level

Sohn

Kalbar

Birkved

2017

Journal of Cleaner Production

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Life cycle based dynamic assessment coupled with multiple criteria decision analysis: A case study of determining an optimal building insulation level

Sohn

Kalbar

Birkved

2017

Journal of Cleaner Production

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“…We use the CO 2eq emissions as indicator for environmental burden using GWP100 characterisation factors. Despite its limitations, the carbon footprint is considered to be a good proxy for energy-related activities Kalbar et al (2017). For validation, we studied the correlation between CO 2eq emissions and other environmental indicators from a widely used impact assessment method (ReCiPe Goedkoop et al (2009)).…”

Section: Goal and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the global warming emissions of the LCAXVII conference: connecting flights matter

Astudillo

AzariJafari

2018

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Conferences are an important element of scientific activity but also one of the major causes of environmental burden. In this conference report, we analyse the carbon footprint of the annual conference of the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment, as well as some of the potential ways to reduce it. The average emissions per participant are estimated to be 952 kg CO 2eq , but with a large variability due to differences in travelled distance. Results indicate that studies should use distance-dependent flight emissions to increase the accuracy of the assessment. Connection flights are found to increase emissions up to 32 % compared with direct flights, due to the increased number of takeoffs and landings. A method to calculate the ideal location is proposed, which can be used to identify unreasonably distant conference locations. Some of the measures taken to reduce the impact, such as meat-free menus, had a relatively minor contribution to emissions reductions, but could be important, as scientist advocating for the reduction of environmental burden should lead by example.

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“…However, the smaller the proposed headline set of indicators, the higher the chance that the set is not representative of all relevant impact pathways. Various authors evaluated the usefulness of the cumulative energy demand (CED) or the carbon footprint as proxy indicator for environmental damage (e.g., Huijbregts et al 2010;Röös et al 2013;Kalbar et al 2017;Simas et al 2017). While relatively high correlations are found for most metrics of environmental damage, there are also impact categories (such as freshwater eco-toxicity) for which neither CED nor carbon footprint are good proxies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Headline Environmental Indicators Revisited with the Global Multi‐Regional Input‐Output Database EXIOBASE

Steinmann

Schipper

Stadler

et al. 2017

J of Industrial Ecology

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SummaryEnvironmentally extended multiregion input-output (EEMRIO) databases are used to quantify numerous environmental pressures and impacts from a consumption perspective. However, for targeted communication with decision makers, large sets of impact indicators are unfavorable. Small sets of headline indicators have been proposed to guide environmental policy, but these may not cover all relevant aspects of environmental impact. The aim of our study was to evaluate the extent to which a set of four headline indicators (material, land, water, and carbon) is representative of the total environmental impact embedded in an EEMRIO database. We also used principal component analysis combined with linear regression to investigate which environmental indicators are good candidates to supplement this headline indicator set, using 119 environmental indicators linked to the EEMRIO database, EXIOBASE. We found that the four headline indicators covered 59.9% of the variance in product-region rankings among environmental indicators, with carbon and land already explaining 57.4%. Five additional environmental indicators (marine eco-toxicity, terrestrial eco-toxicity, photochemical oxidation, terrestrial acidification, and eutrophication) were needed to cover 95% of the variance. In comparison, a statistically optimal set of seven indicators explained 95% of the variance as well. Our findings imply that there is (1) a significant statistical redundancy in the four headline indicators, and (2) a considerable share of the variance is caused by other environmental impacts not covered by the headline indicators. The results of our study can be used to further optimize the set of headline indicators for environmental policy.

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Can carbon footprint serve as proxy of the environmental burden from urban consumption patterns?

Abstract: Carbon footprint (CFP) is widely applied as an indicator when assessing environmental sustainability of products and services. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the validity

Cited by 46 publications

References 36 publications

Life cycle based dynamic assessment coupled with multiple criteria decision analysis: A case study of determining an optimal building insulation level

Life cycle based dynamic assessment coupled with multiple criteria decision analysis: A case study of determining an optimal building insulation level

Estimating the global warming emissions of the LCAXVII conference: connecting flights matter

Headline Environmental Indicators Revisited with the Global Multi‐Regional Input‐Output Database EXIOBASE

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