Carbon Footprint
A carbon footprint refers to the total amount of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, produced directly and indirectly by human activities. It is typically measured in units of carbon dioxide equivalent and encompasses emissions from activities such as transportation, energy use, and food production. Understanding and reducing carbon footprints is crucial for mitigating climate change and promoting sustainability.
8 Key excerpts on "Carbon Footprint"
- Simon Grima, Ercan Özen, Inna Romānova, Simon Grima, Ercan Özen, Inna Romānova(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Emerald Publishing Limited(Publisher)
...82). Carbon Footprint is that which creates greenhouse effect, increases global warming, and causes damage to the atmosphere. In other words, it is the measure of human activities that harm the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse emissions measured as a unit of CO 2 (karbonayakizi.com). One of the main reasons for changing climatic conditions is global warming. The main factors causing global warming are carbon dioxide and methane (CH 4) gases. Although both of them are harmful, CO 2 is more dangerous compared to CH 4 gas. According to the studies carried out by environmentalists, there is a common point reached. CO 2 increase is directly proportional with the increase of world temperature (Neale, 2009, p. 19). Carbon Footprint is used for examining how much greenhouse gas is emitted into the environment (Tolppanen & Kang, 2021, p. 2). All greenhouse gasses capture heat. However, CO 2 is a greenhouse gas that captured even more heat. In view of this, as CO 2 and other greenhouse gases increase, the earth’s temperature increases. Consuming fossil fuels through energy use grows our Carbon Footprint. CO 2 is of critical importance as it triggers global warming and plays an important role in the formation of environmental pollution (http://www.footprintnetwork.org). According to WWF (2016), Carbon Footprint examines the demand of humans on the biosphere, by comparing the renewing capacity of earth itself or biocapacity with the consumption of renewable resources. Biocapacity is the size of the usable area for production of renewable resources and absorption of CO 2 emissions. In other words, Carbon Footprint expresses demand for the forests to be utilised, in order to be able to catch carbon that cannot be absorbed in the long term. This reflects the degrees of forests to be managed by people and different rates of carbon catch and includes uncontrolled forest fires and emissions resulted from lumbering (WWF, 2012, p. 6; WWF, 2016, p. 21). 4...
- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Woodhead Publishing(Publisher)
...Under the umbrella of the ecological footprint measurement, Carbon Footprint helps quantify the amount of land needed to absorb the total amount of CO 2 produced by mankind over its lifetime. Since the issue of global warming came into existence and has started gaining worldwide attention, the Carbon Footprint was considered separately and is now one of the most important ecological factors that has to be measured and accounted for. There is no universally agreed definition of Carbon Footprint yet. Wiedmann and Minx confirmed the same in their study and defined the Carbon Footprint as a measure of the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions directly and indirectly caused by an activity or accumulated over the life stages of a product. 2 In terms of Carbon Footprint, one needs to account for the amount of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases of an activity, business, product or service. The Carbon Footprint can be measured at a corporate level or for products. The former measurement is termed the corporate or organizational footprint and the latter is termed the product Carbon Footprint. Different standards are applied to both kinds of Carbon Footprints. This entire book is concerned with the concept and measurement of product Carbon Footprint along with its implications to the textile and clothing supply chain. As discussed earlier, the Carbon Footprint is quantified using the GWP indicator over a specific time frame which is generally 100 years. The quantified result of Carbon Footprint is expressed in units of mass of carbon dioxide equivalents per unit time or per unit of product (i.e. kg CO 2 equivalents). 3.2.3 Significance of Carbon Footprint assessment The reduction of greenhouse gases from various products, processes and organisations has become not only urgent, but increasingly so since the spike in concentration of greenhouse gases affecting our planet in terms of global warming and its associated negative outcomes...
- Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Woodhead Publishing(Publisher)
...The concept of Carbon Footprint The term ‘Carbon Footprint’ does not have its own definition as such but came from the concept of the ecological footprint, proposed in the 1990s by Rees and Wackernagel. 9, 10 The idea and measurement of a Carbon Footprint is embedded into the measurement of the ecological footprint as well as being a separate entity. Under the umbrella of the ecological footprint measurement, Carbon Footprint helps quantify the amount of land needed to absorb the total amount of CO 2 produced by mankind over its lifetime. Since the issue of global warming came into existence and has started gaining worldwide attention, the Carbon Footprint was considered separately and is now one of the most important ecological factors that has to be measured and accounted for. There is no universally agreed definition of Carbon Footprint yet. Wiedmann and Minx confirmed the same in their study and defined the Carbon Footprint as a measure of the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions directly and indirectly caused by an activity or accumulated over the life stages of a product. 2 In terms of Carbon Footprint, one needs to account for the amount of anthropogenic emissions of GHGs of an activity, business, product or service. The Carbon Footprint can be measured at a corporate level or for products. The former measurement is termed the corporate or organizational footprint and the latter is termed the product Carbon Footprint (PCF). Different standards are applied to both kinds of Carbon Footprints. This entire book is concerned with the concept and measurement of PCF, along with its implications on the textile and clothing supply chain. As discussed earlier, the Carbon Footprint is quantified using the GWP indicator over a specific time frame, which is generally 100 years. The quantified result of Carbon Footprint is expressed in units of mass of carbon dioxide equivalents per unit time or per unit of product (i.e. kg CO 2 equivalents). 3.2.3...
eBook - ePub- Mike Berners-Lee(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Greystone Books(Publisher)
...A brief guide to Carbon Footprints “Carbon Footprint” is a phrase that is horribly abused. 1 I want to make my definition clear. Throughout this book, I’m using “footprint” as a metaphor for the total impact that something has. And I’m using the word “carbon” as shorthand for all the different global warming greenhouse gases. So, I’m using the term “Carbon Footprint” to mean the best estimate we can get of the full climate change impact of something. That something could be anything—an activity, an item, a lifestyle, a company, a country, or even the whole world. What’s CO 2 e? Human-made climate change, also known as global warming (or global heating), is caused by the release of certain types of gas into the atmosphere. The dominant greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO 2), which is emitted whenever we burn fossil fuels in homes, vehicles, factories, or power stations. But other greenhouse gases are also important. Methane (CH 4), for example, which is emitted mainly by agriculture and landfill sites, is twenty-eight times more potent than carbon dioxide, if you compare the impact the two gases will have over a period of one hundred years. Even more potent, but emitted in smaller quantities, are nitrous oxide (N 2 O), which is released mainly from industrial processes and farming and is about 265 times more potent than carbon dioxide over that timescale; and refrigerant gases, which are typically several thousand times more potent than carbon dioxide. In the US, the total impact on the climate breaks down like this: carbon dioxide (80 percent), methane (10 percent), nitrous oxide (7 percent), and refrigerant and other gases (3 percent). 2 While these are the factors to apply when you look at the effect these gases have over a one-hundred-year period, the calculations are a bit more complicated, as gases work in different ways. Methane, for example, is much more short-lived than carbon dioxide...
eBook - ePubThe Rise and Rise of Indicators
Their History and Geography
- Stephen Morse(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...4 Ecological Footprint Introduction The notion of a ‘footprint’ representing an impact is probably as old as the human race. It has been said that one of the most popular poems ever written in English is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ‘A Psalm of Life’ and in it we find the words: Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time. Over thousands of years we have, as a species, certainly had a big impact on the planet upon which we live, and that impact continues to this day. We can actually see many of those impacts from orbit including the effects of infrastructure and agriculture, while others may be less obvious. Carbon dioxide and many other ‘greenhouse’ gases are colourless and can’t be seen with the naked eye, and while some pollution of our water systems can be seen from space, there are others that cannot. At the time of writing this book there are increasing concerns about plastic pollution in the oceans, and, while it is possible to see the accumulations of such waste on the surface, this material does degrade over time; however the chemicals and particles that are released can be highly damaging to ocean life. All this represents humanity’s visible and invisible footprint on the planet. The use of the footprint analogy has found its way into the world of indicators, and we see it today in two forms – the ‘Ecological Footprint’ and the ‘Carbon Footprint’. They sound similar, but are in fact quite different. The Ecological Footprint is designed to encapsulate humanity’s broad impact on the planet in terms of the resources that we use to live and to support our quality of life, and is expressed in terms of the surface area of the planet needed to support an individual based on what they produce and consume. By way of contrast, the Carbon Footprint is a measure of the release of greenhouse gases (e.g. carbon dioxide and methane) associated with a product or process...
eBook - ePubCities as Sustainable Ecosystems
Principles and Practices
- Peter Newman, Isabella Jennings(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Island Press(Publisher)
...Canadian researcher William Rees originated the concept of ecological footprint (Rees 1992), which he further developed with Mathis Wackernagel in their 1996 book Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth, to provide an indication of the human load on the biosphere. Since then, the concept has attracted considerable interest, with many countries, cities, regions, and organizations undertaking ecological footprint analyses. Chambers, Simmons, and Wackernagel define ecological footprint as “the land and water area that is required to support indefinitely the material standard of living of a given human population, using prevailing technology” (2000, 17). The Global Development Research Center defines the ecological footprint of a city as “the amount of land required to sustain its metabolism; that is, to provide the raw materials on which it feeds, and process the waste products it excretes.” 1 Visually, it could be conceived of as the area that a glass dome over the city would have to cover in order to maintain the population at their current standard of living. As ecological footprints are calculated on year-specific data, they provide a snapshot of current impacts. Thus they are likely to vary over time, with changes in technology and variations in material flows (Best Foot Forward 2002). To decide how sustainable a population is, human demand is compared with what is available—an area’s biocapacity. Biocapacity refers to the amount of “nature” or biologically productive resources available to supply human demand. Original estimates of global biocapacity by Wackernagel and Rees (1996) excluded areas of low biological productivity such as deserts, ice caps, and open ocean...
eBook - ePubPinch Analysis for Energy and Carbon Footprint Reduction
User Guide to Process Integration for the Efficient Use of Energy
- Ian C. Kemp, Jeng Shiun Lim(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Butterworth-Heinemann(Publisher)
...But in recent years, there has been increased emphasis on the other end of the process – the emissions produced, and in particular the level of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as the world has become more aware of climate change. This latter effect is summed up in the term “Carbon Footprint”. While the term ‘global warming’ was popularised by scientists studying the adverse effects on emission of greenhouse gases, the specific numerical limits remained vague and unregulated until 1992. That year, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was officially ratified by 197 countries all over the world and became effective in 1994. It was one of the first international environmental treaties to address the problem with regards to greenhouse gases emissions. The primary objective of UNFCCC was to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere as a remedy for the onset of global warming. The Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, signed in 1997 and 2016 respectively, serve as extensions to the treaty above, and set the bar for greenhouse gases reduction according to “Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capabilities” concerning different nations. With these agreements entering into force, although no statutory punitive mechanisms have been introduced internationally, these defined carbon emission targets have given rise to various voluntary taxes or laws being enforced by the participating countries. The obvious greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, but it is not the only one, nor even, kilogram for kilogram, the most damaging. Some greenhouse gases have a far higher effect per unit mass than CO 2, notably methane, CH 4. Indeed, there are many that per kilogram are 3-5 orders of magnitude worse than CO 2, including the CFCs (chlorinated fluorocarbons) that have done so much damage to the ozone layer, as listed in Global Warming Potential Values (2014)...
eBook - ePub- Arnaud Brohé(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...1 The birth of carbon accounting Climate risk, the first signs of which can already be felt, truly hangs like a sword of Damocles over human development. Concentrations of GHGs have increased considerably since the Industrial Revolution, thanks largely to our methods of organization, production and consumption. In response to this challenge, the international community came together at the UN to build up a legal framework ultimately intended to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (UNFCCC, 1992.). The greenhouse effect: a natural phenomenon amplified by human activity The greenhouse effect is a phenomenon that maintains the earth at an average temperature of around 15 degrees Celsius°, thus allowing life to exist. It is caused by the natural presence of greenhouse gases, which trap some of the heat emitted by sun in the atmosphere. Figure 1.1 provides a brief description of the natural phenomenon. F IGURE 1.1 The greenhouse effect The scientific term to describe the influence of GHGs on the earth's heat balance is "radiative forcing". This is defined as the difference between the radiative energy received and the radiative energy emitted by a given climatic system. Positive radiative forcing tends to heat up the system (more energy is received than emitted), while a negative radiative forcing leads to cooling (more energy is lost than received). The main GHG is water vapour. However, direct emissions of water vapour have virtually no impact if we look only at the anthropogenic or additional greenhouse effect (which is in addition to the natural greenhouse effect). Indeed, this planet is essentially covered in water; furthermore, water remains in the atmosphere for only around one week and thus does not accumulate. This means that water-vapour emissions of human origin are not sufficient to interfere with the global water cycle. CO 2 is the main cause of the anthropogenic greenhouse effect...
