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Nearly everything that we do produces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions either directly or indirectly; whether it is getting to work, watching TV or buying our lunch. The most important greenhouse gas produced by human activities is carbon dioxide. Direct GHG emissions sources are often easy to identify – for example burning fossil fuels for electricity generation, heating and transport. It is sometimes less obvious that products and services also cause indirect emissions throughout their life-cycles. Energy is required for production and transport of products, and greenhouse gases are also released when products are disposed of at the end of their useful lives.
Thus a carbon footprint is the total set of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event or product. It is expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent of other GHGs, emitted.
Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planet (Earth) to provide the resources to humanity and absorb the waste produced by them. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year.
Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the 2030s, we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only have one.
We are turning resources into waste faster than it (waste) can be turned back into resources. This put us in global ecological overshoot, depleting the very resources on which human life and biodiversity depend.
The result is collapsing fisheries, diminishing forest cover, depletion of fresh water systems, and the buildup of carbon dioxide emissions, which creates problems like global climate change. Overshoot also contributes to resource conflicts and wars, mass migrations, famine, disease and other human tragedies—and tends to have a disproportionate impact on the poor, who cannot buy their way out of the problem by getting resources from somewhere else.
A carbon footprint is made up of the sum of two parts, the primary foot print and the secondary footprint.
1. The primary footprint is a measure of the direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane).
2. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown.
Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planet (Earth) to provide the resources to humanity and absorb the waste produced by them. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year.
Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the 2030s, we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only have one.
We are turning resources into waste faster than it (waste) can be turned back into resources. This put us in global ecological overshoot, depleting the very resources on which human life and biodiversity depend.
The result is collapsing fisheries, diminishing forest cover, depletion of fresh water systems, and the buildup of carbon dioxide emissions, which creates problems like global climate change. Overshoot also contributes to resource conflicts and wars, mass migrations, famine, disease and other human tragedies—and tends to have a disproportionate impact on the poor, who cannot buy their way out of the problem by getting resources from somewhere else.
A carbon footprint is made up of the sum of two parts, the primary foot print and the secondary footprint.
1. The primary footprint is a measure of the direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane).
2. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown.
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