A Fair(er) Footprint: Carbon footprints based on shared production and consumption based accounting perspectives

One way to understand the impact of human action on resources is to quantify the total environmental pressures via a footprint. Carbon footprints (CFs) are widely used, with great success among public and policymakers. Two... [ view full abstract ]

One way to understand the impact of human action on resources is to quantify the total environmental pressures via a footprint. Carbon footprints (CFs) are widely used, with great success among public and policymakers. Two main accounting perspectives are distinguished: production based accounting (PBA) and consumption based accounting (CBA).

Though often not explicitly stated, footprints can be used as a proxy for assessing environmental responsibility by accounting for the total direct and indirect effects of a production or a consumption activity. This creates a principle of producer-consumer responsibility, which is highly debatable. The methodological and political limitations in assigning responsibilities are recognised by scientists. However, discourses such as “environmental pressure arising from households…consumption” [1] can be easily misinterpreted outside of scientific forums. Efforts to address these issues are found in e.g. [2] and [3]. However, the moral implications, for both individual and collective justice, have not been fully addressed.

In this study, we use the Rawlsian concept of justice as fairness to allocate environmental responsibility. For that purpose, we address first existing production, consumption and shared production-consumption approaches in terms of fairness. Second, we discuss the normative implications for the agents involved in the application of footprints. Third, we operationalize ‘fairness’ to account for and weigh the level of responsibility of both consumers and producers. Levels of consumer awareness, buying power, as well as the availability of substitute goods account towards consumer responsibility. Improvement potential within production processes, as well as the availability of substitution for intermediate goods in the production value chain account towards producer responsibility. We use the environmentally extended MRIO database EXIOBASE [4] in combination with country statistics to calculate a carbon footprint based on weighted responsibilities. Lastly, we discuss the advantages and limitations of this way to weigh environmental responsibility.

[1] doi:10.1111/jiec.12371

[2] doi: 10.1038/nclimate2555

[3] doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.10.002

[4] doi:10.3390/su7010138