Carbon footprint calculators offer people the opportunity to assess their own carbon impact on the environment. It is unclear, however, the extent to which these calculators lead to people making changes in their lifestyle.
A research study published in the journal, Sustainability, pilots a new carbon footprint questionnaire. This includes some open, qualitative questions, with the aim of encouraging reflection on personal change.
The full text article, with figures and tables is available as an open-source research paper
Key findings include
- Younger adults have lower carbon footprints because older adults travel more in cars and heat larger homes.
- Participants are motivated to make changes but do not necessarily know how to make effective changes with the most impact.
The questionnaire is developed for a Church community in England who have joined the international A Roca environmental movement. This Non-Government Organisation encourages churches to make behavioural changes to negate climate change.
As with previous research, three subgroups of carbon footprints are explored: travel, household energy use, and consumer behaviour with items like food and clothing.
Personal behaviour change
While participants in the research are more focused on changing their personal consumer behaviour, this is the aspect that contributed the least to their total carbon footprints when compared with household energy use and travel.
Household energy use contributes the most to carbon footprints across the sample, but this is not something that many participants have clear ideas about for changing.
This is despite a rapid growth in renewable energy production, associated green tariffs and incentives in the household energy market, and increasingly complex ways of purchasing renewable energy at certain times of day linked to smart technologies and smart phones.
In contrast, participants were more likely to focus ideas for behaviour change on driving less and reducing new consumer purchases.