12/4/2023 0 Comments Average carbon footprintThey are all white, which is the group that is responsible for the highest levels of consumption in the U.S., and as a result, the most emissions. Of course, there are exceptions-spending $100 on a steak dinner for two could have higher emissions than spending $100 on groceries to make a vegan meal at home.Ī few more quick caveats: these are all families with annual incomes of more than $100,000, and I sourced them from friends of friends and social media. Allaway estimates that every $100 spent on materials accounts for about three times more emissions than $100 spent on services. In general, spending on services and experiences, like concert tickets or museum subscriptions, is more environmentally friendly than spending on goods, because part of what you are paying for is labor. There’s a reason the Swedish have a word “flygskam,” or “flight shame”: one flight can cancel out the most tightfisted family’s progress for a week. The families that ate beef and dairy and that bought plane tickets were responsible for the most emissions. The Denver family, which is vegetarian and has solar panels on their roof, had a significantly smaller footprint than the others. Read more: How American Consumers Broke the Supply Chainīuying less stuff is a piece of reducing emissions, but families can most reduce their carbon footprints through their eating and travel habits. This means that the “reduce” part of “reduce, reuse, recycle,” is the most important. “By the time you purchase something, 99% of the damage has already been done,” Allaway told me. That’s because the emissions from the disposal of goods is tiny compared to the emissions created from producing something in the first place. Still, the estimates give a good overview of just how much of a difference individuals can make in reducing their carbon footprint, and they shed light on exactly how our spending drives emissions.Īlthough many consumers have a lot of guilt about disposing of things once they’re done with them, whether it be plastic packaging or a shirt that they’ve worn a few times and then stained, we just looked at consumption. A family might spend a lot one week and not much the following week. They only tracked one week of spending, and I prorated their electricity and power costs, so this is still an inexact calculator. Still, the estimates give a good overview of the emissions driven by the behavior of different families. This is, of course, an inexact model: The families only tracked one week of spending, and their spending was self-reported, so it’s possible they missed an expense or two. The families sent me their expenses, excluding housing, and I entered them into the categories in Allaway’s model. Allaway has refined the analysis since then and completed it again in 2015.Īllaway agreed to use the model he has honed to calculate the carbon footprint of these four families, based on how much money they spent in each category. It counts the emissions of all purchases by consumers, regardless of where those emissions were created-in Mexico, picking, packing, and shipping bananas in Saudi Arabia, drilling for and refining petroleum. This analysis, called consumption-based emissions accounting, roughly estimates the emissions that come from consumer purchases in 536 different categories, including things as specific as beef cattle, books, and full-service restaurants. families spending so much money on stuff-making it that much harder to reach the COP26 goal of preventing warming from going beyond 1.5☌? Convincing yourself to be environmentally conscious in your shopping habits feels a bit like convincing yourself to vote-obviously you should do it, but do the actions of one person really matter?Īs I kept buying things that I thought I needed while cooped up at home, I wondered: how much was my shopping, individually, contributing to climate change? Those pairs of extra-soft sweatpants, those reams of high density rubber foam that I use to baby-proof my apartment, those disposable yogurt bins and takeout food containers, all made from plastic and paper and other raw materials was I-and other U.S. But goods are so cheap and easily available online that it feels harmless to add one more thing to your shopping cart. Buying things has become one of the few sources of joy for many people since COVID-19 began sweeping the globe-and shopping online has become necessary for people trying to stay at home and avoid potential exposure. Still, it can be hard, as an individual or a family, to care enough to change habits.
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