Household Carbon Footprint (HCF) Assessment in India: Approaches and Challenges
摘要
The carbon, land, and water footprint can provide important insights in understanding of anthropogenic impact on the ecosystem. Household consumption patterns have been identified as one of the important factors in influencing greenhouse gas emissions and considered to be critical for developing climate policy. IPCC (2007) suggests change in consumption patterns as a possible approach to alleviate the effects of climate change. Various socioeconomic, lifestyle and demographic characteristics such as household size, household income, food habits, mobility choices, waste management, home appliances, gender, education, and employment significantly influence household carbon footprint. Carbon footprint is calculated by adding the emissions of different greenhouse gases (GHGs) resulting from lifecycle (cradle to grave) of a product or service (material sourcing, manufacturing, use phase, and end-of-life disposal). Unilever in one of its studies had estimated that approximately 70% of GHGs footprint depends on which product consumers choose and whether they use or dispose the products in a sustainable way.