What’s the story?
- In the fight against climate change, carbon footprints have been a way to measure an individual's environmental impact and pinpoint exactly which habits or activities they can change to lower their effect on the crisis. Several companies and organizations created their own version of carbon footprint calculators to make this concept more accessible.
- Recently, activists and researchers have been questioning the credibility of carbon footprint calculators and wondering why individuals are more concerned about their personal emissions instead of the 100 investors and fossil fuel companies responsible for 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
What is a carbon footprint?
- A carbon footprint amounts to the total quantity of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, released into the atmosphere by an individual, city, country, or company. It was introduced as a way to visualize one entity’s impact on the environment.
- Carbon footprint calculators add up the foods you eat, the clothes you buy and wear, your commute to work, the electricity you use, anything you throw away, and more to quantify your output. The larger your carbon footprint is, the more stress you put on the environment.
History of the carbon footprint
- In 1996, Professor William Rees created the “ecological footprint” to measure how different populations and behaviors affect the planet. In 2004, oil and gas company BP popularized the new term “carbon footprint” and brought counting carbon emissions down to the individual level as part of a public relations (PR) campaign.
- BP found itself at the center of numerous environmental controversies and received heavy fines from the U.S. government and condemnations by activist groups. In 2000, Mother Jones named BP one of the world’s worst corporations, and in 2002, BP’s profits dropped 46-57 percent.
- In 2004, BP started its carbon footprint campaign as part of the $200 million makeover done by PR firm Ogilvy & Mather. The rebranding included a new name (from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum), logo, and entire visual identity. The campaign intended to define the company as innovative, progressive, socially conscious, and responsible. The firm wanted to promote that the company was moving “beyond petroleum” and into greener, environmental approaches.
- Within the public relations campaign, BP increased awareness of the carbon footprint so its customers could reduce their environmental impacts and lead a more sustainable lifestyle. The company emphasized combating climate change through individual behavior.
- Today, BP’s Carbon Footprint calculator breaks down personal emissions into travel, home, food, and purchases. After estimating how much energy and resources are used, the results will show how many tons of carbon dioxide are emitted yearly.
- The tool became widely popular and inspired other organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nature Conservancy to adopt their own carbon footprint calculators. However, investigative journalists and researchers have argued that the concept of carbon footprints, and BP’s campaign, are misleading.
Responses to BP’s carbon footprint campaign
- Mashable writer Mark Kaufman argued that BP hired Ogilvy & Mather to promote the idea that climate change is not the fault of the oil industry but that of individuals. He wrote that the term “carbon footprint” is a sham created to convince the public that the climate crisis is the responsibility of those who commute to work in gas-powered vehicles, who don't follow vegan diets, and who use plastic bags for their groceries.
- Stanford University Ph.D. Candidate Benjamin Franta claims the carbon footprint to be “...one of the most successful, deceptive PR campaigns maybe ever,” and University of Brighton Professor Julie Doyle argued that BP’s motive was to assign the responsibility of climate impact to the individual, letting BP off the hook by appearing to be already doing something about it.
- MIT researchers questioning the validity of a carbon footprint calculated the emissions of a homeless person and discovered that an individual will still indirectly emit 8.5 tons of carbon dioxide yearly. They argued having a sustainable carbon footprint is impossible.
- In an opinion article for the New York Times in 2006, one of the creators of BP’s campaign, John Kenney, admitted it was a marketing scheme and not a sincere effort to promote low-carbon lifestyles.
- While many see the limits in the carbon footprint concept and equation, they also admit that the “carbon footprint” term is here to stay. BP’s campaign has raised awareness of the environmental impacts of the consumer’s everyday life. However, the definition can still be expanded to pertain more strongly to governments and corporations.
What do you think? Do you think carbon footprints are useful or misleading?
-Jamie Epstein
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Carbon Footpprints are a useful notional tool guide either/or choice between alternative ways of doing things. I think that they could do so much more if there were negotiated and agreed to standard for how much activities and things 'cost' in terms of carbnon footprint 'costs'.
To incentiviise the needed vast reduction in CO2 emmisions, I would lke the see a tax levied based on the per item carbon cost. This,for example, would help move more manufacturing back to this country from China because of the carbon footprint of coal based electrical power and the carbon cost of ntercontinental shippng. This would also encourage 'carbon dirty' manuafactures to make use of renewable (but not biofuel) enegy sourcess, more energy efficient methods, and an enhanced profit motive to reseach better renewable enrgy sources enhanced direct carbon capture and more efficient energy storage.
Also, a carbon tax would provide a solid foundation for cap-and-trade stratagies for needed production of stuff which is broadly needed even though, by today's technoligy, they are carbon dirty processes.
Finally, feed most or all of the tax revenues back to the people to bring home the economic benefits and ensure that they ae engaged in and fully uderatand he need to reduce CO2 emissions.
CAUSES ASKS: "How do you feel about carbon footprints?" ME: So-so. While I find it a great idea to alert people to their potential personal impacts on the environment, I've also found that the "tests" for how big one's footprint is doesn't take into consideration many of the things people actually do to lessen their impacts. For example: Sometimes recycling is mentioned in the tests; often it isn't. Haven't yet found one that includes use of drip irrigation, composting, heavy mulching and landscaping for energy-use reduction; shopping primarily recycled personal, and household items ("reduce-reuse-recycle"); energy use reduction measures such as adjusting window coverings and thermostats to accommodate interior heating/cooling; shopping with cloth bags; etc., etc. It seems the only thing that counts in the tests I've taken are how big a house one lives in and how many people live there. I live with two cats in a fairly large house with a modest garden, but find that our carbon footprint might be huge per the test, but neither my small utility bills nor my limited amount of actual trash seem to support that conclusion.
If we don't get serious, and real soon, there will be nothing to leave those who come after us but a polluted, unrepairable mess.
This is an incredibly poorly structured survey. How do I feel about carbon footprints? I feel great about them as a good measure of our impact on the planet. I feel terrible about anyone or anything having a large carbon footprint.
While corporations and governments regulating them are responsible for the majority of carbon emissions we as individuals can only control our actions both those that directly contribute (driving, heating-cooling, eating) as well as which corporations we buy from based on how well they control carbon emissions.
The 1st step towards corporate carbon neutrality is to quantify the current level of emissions accurately. In lieu of binding regulation, alliances of non-governmental organizations’ corporate carbon accounting practices the World Resources Institute & World Business Council on Sustainable Development set the global standard for corporations to assess their carbon footprint with the so-called ‘GHG Protocol’ establishing 3 categories of emissions:
1) company’s own activities.
2) production of purchased energy. 3) emissions from up- (suppliers) and downstream (customers) activities along the value chain which accounts for 87% of emissions
For US & Chinese companies # 3 emissions account for over 80% of the total emissions
A study of large US companies finds that companies reported less than 25% of their upstream #3 emissions in 2013
NewClimate Institute, an environmental organization that works to combat global warming concluded in a report from researchers after reviewing 25 companies found that many are misleading consumers by using accounting practices that make their environmental goals relatively meaningless or are excluding key parts of their businesses in their calculations.
1) pledged to reach net-zero emissions 100% but committed to reduce emissions by about 40%
2) 24 of 25 companies relied on carbon offsets such as reforestation projects but don't happen because forests can be razed or destroyed by wildfires, re-releasing carbon into the air.
3) goal unclear if carbon dioxide emissions only or all greenhouse gases, or whether it’s own emissions or customers & suppliers too
4) Used a base year that was extraordinarily high instead of average or mean of several years
5) included only portions of its business, relied on carbon offsets, no detail on the renewable electricity sources it was pursuing
Of the 25 companies studied, 15 of them reduce #1" & # 2" emissions, which are emissions released directly by the company or by its using electricity but didn't address #3 emissions (suppliers or customers which account for 87% of all emissions for the 25 companies studied.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26349-x
https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/07/1079009751/corporate-climate-pledges-are-weaker-than-they-seem-a-new-study-reports
https://newclimate.org/2022/02/07/corporate-climate-responsibility-monitor-2022/
I'm slightly concerned about my carbon footprint, but I do so much less to harm the planet than large corporations and the transportation industry. Let's all do our part; starting with the government, the military, and the wealthy companies that are not doing enough to stop their carbon footprints.
It's important to let people know what companies, practices, and industries are in most immediate need of a green revolution.
While we wait for the Senate to pass a climate bill we should all do what we can to reduce our carbon footprint. Personally, I have solar panels, compost and recycle everything I can. I plan to buy an EV truck within 2 years.
The problem with the whole carbon/CO2 conversation is that it bypasses the real driver of global warming, which is the hydrologic system/cycle. Drawing down CO2 from the atmosphere or even reducing emissions will not do it. We need to build carbon-rich soils. There is no better/faster way to reverse global warming and temper the extreme weather we are experiencing because of our disruption to the earth's hydrologic system. See Walter Jehne's work for more details. www.regenerate-earth.com
The corporations out there most responsible for pollution have been lying to us for decades now about their own impact and have been trying to guilt us into fixing a problem that we cannot, while they do nothing to right their own wrongs. Climate change has only gotten worse and worse and they have done nothing to account for it. They continue to pump money into ad campaigns talking about how we can make a change, while they continue to grow and grow making a problem that they caused even worse. Climate change is real, and these oil companies and other corporations have known about it for years from their very own research, but acknowledging it and taking measures to lower their carbon emissions would drive down their profits, and lord knows that they can't have that! So instead of taking action to prevent the harm they are causing, they created the idea of the individual carbon footprint, to push blame on the individual, and not the giant mega corporation polluting and causing the most harm. I say, they need to do exactly as they have told us to do for the past several decades. They need to be held accountable for their actions, and we need them to make a change NOW, and to start caring about the planet the same way they've told us to care about it for over 40 years. We only have one planet Earth, so let's treat it that way, while we still have it.
Carbon footprint calculators which are truly accurate are good to show truth. For example knowing the truth about electric vehicles is important.
"Carbon Footprint" is an informal measure of potential impact of a person, business, or political or geographic unit. Calculating them is not so well defined as to make them a fully trusted measure. They are useful for tracking progress on actions taken to reduce impact on the environment and climate, if not misused.
Misuse is not uncommon, but this is not the only measure that is subject to misuse. If used properly, it can be helpful.
All bs.Its all about control. Let's ruin the greats country ever to a scam.Lets ruin the greatest food supply(farmig) production to a climate scam and carbon footprint bs.Lets ruin our energy production in the name of this also.Hope all you idiots living in the cities understand you will starve first.You will pay the ultimate price for supporting this bs.
tTo see if there is an improvement it helps to have a standard to use for measuring any changes. When an industry makes the scale we can be assured that they will make itself look good. Others will need to modify the scale to include the impact of other activities to make the amount of carbon in the air and its various sources more accurately measured.
Based on what I read, it sure doesn't seem anyone understands what 'carbon footprint' really is. Unless we start killing off people (enter Covid 🤔) I really don't see if it matters.
Guns overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers in 2020
you are carbon when dead! Who cares?
gop motto
save the unborn kill the living
I understand the thought behind them, but the ways for an everyday person are not only very expensive, but are also hard to come by.
Carbon Footprints are a good first step in estimating impact of Human Activity's on our planetary environment. So far, "Big Business", in particular the Petro-Fossil extraction industry, seem to only give the concept lip service. Industry is SLOWLY transitioning to a more sustainable stance, but it seems it is too little ... too late. We are certainly reaching or beyond a tipping point. Critical resources are disappearing or have become so polluted they are nearly unusable. Global environmental crisis may soon be upon us all with little to remediate it, no matter how hard we may try. Increasingly this planet is becoming inhospitable to life as we currently know and understand it. The celebration today is more about days gone by that a brighter tomorrow. The planet will continue on and come to a new equilibrum when the dust has finally settled.
I do what I can personally, like knowing almost everything we think is being recycled, isn't. So I try not to buy stuff that's "recyclable".
It's the corporations and developers clear cutting land doing the most harm. They've had the chance to regulate themselves and it hasn't worked. It's time to crack down
The same thing I think I have said numerous times. Yes, we need to take measures to take care of our planet. However, we ARE NOT ready to do without oil and gas at this point. We must have it to survive. One day, when we have made enough advancements to no longer have to rely on oil and gas, great! But that day is not today. And trying to force this issue before we are ready, only weakens our stability, strength, and security. We are seeing this right now. Our idiot President does everything the far Left wants, which has caused us to be dependent on foreign oil from our own enemies, which inevitably makes us weaker in the eyes of the world. We are also paying dearly for it at the pump.
Secondly, WE SHARE THE SAME PLANET!! So if we are the only country scaraficing ourselves for climate change, it doesn't really work, does it? So greatly reducing our own production of oil, just to buy it from other countries, is not even logical. But then again, nothing the Left does is logical.