Significance of environmental footprints for evaluating sustainability and security of development

Abstract

This contribution presents the selected categories of environmental footprints related to the planetary boundaries and threats to human security. The analysis covers the footprint family of indicators that usually consists of ecological, carbon or more precisely greenhouse gas and water footprints and also sometimes the energy footprint. The other assessed footprints that are important for ecosystem health in regard to water, health, food, and land and species security are nitrogen, phosphorus, biodiversity and land footprints, which have already transgressed the planetary boundaries and are therefore outside the safe operating space. The importance of the various footprints is discussed and the simultaneous analysis of footprints is emphasised as a major direction of research and practice. The comprehensive set of environmental impacts, e.g. set of presented footprints in this contribution, should be considered and should incorporate the burdening and unburdening concept from the life cycle perspective. Some applications of the presented environmental footprints are offered, and conclusions and remarks provided for future observation.

Nickel‐based Catalysts for High‐temperature Water Gas Shift Reaction‐Methane Suppression

“…Secondly, the by‐product of complete hydrogen oxidation in air is water. These are attractive reasons to pursue hydrogen economy as the current fossil fuel economy produce carbon dioxide which exacerbate global warming and climate change ,. Although hydrogen sources are plenty, such as water and biomass, much of hydrogen today is extracted from conventional fossil fuel such as crude oil and natural gas.…”

Environmental footprint family to address local to planetary sustainability and deliver on the SDGs

“…The carbon footprint (or greenhouse gas footprint (Čuček et al, 2015)) is an emission footprint, which measures the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) to the atmosphere. Conceptually the carbon footprint also includes GHG emissions from land-use change, although in practice this is not always the case.…”

“…A limited amount of papers on the footprint family have been published. Hoekstra and Wiedmann (2014) and Čuček et al (2015) reviewed current environmental footprints and reviewed global estimates of footprint scores relative to planetary boundaries, without the consideration of local sustainability that requires specific environmental footprints to remain within local boundaries. Čuček et al (2012) and Fang et al (2016) focused on the typology of environmental, social and economic footprints, but did not relate them to monitoring progress towards the SDGs or the WEFE nexus.…”

Consequences of Transport Low-Carbon Transitions and the Carbon, Land and Water Footprints of Different Fuel Options in The Netherlands

“…The footprint family includes emission footprints, i.e., the carbon and grey water footprint, and resource use footprints, i.e., the land and blue and green water footprints [30]. The carbon footprint calculates greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere [47]; the grey water footprint calculates the amount of freshwater needed in order to dilute polluted water to accepted water quality standards [48]. The land footprint assesses the amount of land needed to supply human needs in physical units [49].…”