Elsevier

Ecological Economics

Volume 68, Issue 7, 15 May 2009, Pages 2066-2077
Ecological Economics

Analysis
The carbon footprint of UK households 1990–2004: A socio-economically disaggregated, quasi-multi-regional input–output model

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.01.013Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper presents a socio-economically disaggregated framework for attributing CO2 emissions to people's high level functional needs. Based around a quasi-multi-regional input–output (QMRIO) model, the study, in theory, takes into account all CO2 emissions that arise from energy used in production of goods and services to satisfy UK household demand, whether the emissions occur in the UK or abroad. Results show that CO2 emissions attributable to households were 15% above 1990 levels in 2004, and that although absolute decoupling occurred between household expenditure and CO2 during the UK's switch from coal to gas in the early 1990s, since then only slight relative decoupling is evident. The proportion of CO2 that arises outside UK borders in support of UK consumption is rising, and reducing these emissions is particularly problematic in a global trading system. Investigation into the carbon footprint of different segments of the UK population shows wide variation: the segment with the highest carbon footprint emits 64% more CO2 than the segment with the lowest. Results show that recreation and leisure are responsible for over one quarter of CO2 emissions in a typical UK household in 2004. We conclude that expanding lifestyle aspirations are significant factors in driving household CO2 emissions, but the study also emphasizes that attention must be paid to the infrastructures and institutions that result in considerable amounts of CO2 being locked up in basic household activities through which people meet their everyday needs for subsistence, protection, and communication with family and friends. The findings highlight the sheer scale of the challenge facing UK policy-makers, and suggest that policies should be targeted towards segments of society responsible for the highest carbon footprints.

Introduction

The premise of this study is that the responsibility for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from economic activity lies with people's attempts to satisfy certain functional needs and desires. In simple economic terms, our needs and desires are expressed in the consumer demand for commodities, and it is this demand for goods and services which drives the production processes that consume resources – including energy resources – and emit pollutants – including CO2 and other greenhouse gases (Daly, 1996, Daly and Cobb, 1989, HM Government, 2005, UN, 2002, UNCED, 1992). To help us understand the link between the attempted satisfaction of human needs and desires and CO2 emissions, and to understand the scale of emissions reductions that are required, we ask the following questions. How much CO2 is attributable to which kinds of needs and desires? Is the highest amount attributable to subsistence needs such as food and clothing? Or protection (housing and security)? Or our leisure demands? Or to the need to communicate with our family and friends? Do some segments of UK society have a higher carbon footprint1 than others? If so, what is the disparity? What are the current trends, and to what extent is decoupling occurring between household expenditure and CO2 emissions?

In order to be able to start to answer these questions we present a framework that estimates CO2 emissions from energy use attributable UK households from the consumption perspective. We apply this framework for three investigations: (a) trends 1990–2004; (b) CO2 emissions by different segments of society; (c) we explore the amounts of CO2 that are used to support the various different activities that make up modern lifestyles, or, in other words, we attribute CO2 emissions to functional uses.

In accounting from the consumption perspective we include CO2 emissions from energy used directly in homes (for space heating, lighting, and so on), for personal transportation (including personal vehicle use and personal aviation), and also from energy used upstream in the production of goods and services purchased by UK households (Bastianoni et al., 2004, Bin and Dowlatabadi, 2005, Jackson and Papathanasopoulou, 2008, Jackson et al., 2006, Munksgaard and Pedersen, 2001, Nijdam et al., 2005, Peters and Hertwich, 2006, Peters, 2008, Weber and Matthews, 2008). The upstream CO2 emissions are referred to as “embedded”. An important aspect of the consumption perspective is that it takes account of all emissions incurred in support of household consumption within the UK, whether they occur in the UK or abroad (Druckman et al., 2008a, Wiedmann et al., 2008a, Wiedmann et al., 2008b). This contrasts with the production perspective, which accounts for emissions produced within UK territorial boundaries, regardless of where consumption of final goods and services occurs. The difference between the two approaches is the CO2 embodied in trade.

One of the reasons that consumption accounting is not used more widely is that accounting for CO2 embedded in consumption uses Environmental Input–Output (EIO) modelling. This is a highly data-intensive technique for which there are significant difficulties in compiling robust datasets (Peters et al., 2007), and this is particularly the case for the UK.2 Furthermore, in order to take account of CO2 embedded in goods and services produced abroad to support UK consumption, a Multi-Regional Input–Output model (MRIO) is ideally required. MRIO models present even greater data challenges than conventional EIO models, and are often limited in the number of sectors (Huppes et al., 2006, Tukker et al., 2006, Turner et al., 2007). To overcome this difficulty we have developed a quasi-multi-regional input–output (QMRIO) model which attempts to estimate CO2 emissions due to imported goods and services with maximum accuracy and transparency but with lower data requirements than a multi-regional model.

The paper is organised as follows. In the Background section we give an overview of relevant conditions specific to the UK, augment the rationale for the study, give an overview of the socio-economic segmentation system used, and introduce the Local Area Resource Analysis (LARA) model. In Section 3 we describe the methodologies, starting with an overview of consumption accounting, followed by the QMRIO model methodology. The way in which LARA is applied to estimate the average household carbon footprint for each Supergroup is described next (Section 3.2), followed by the methodology for mapping CO2 emissions to high level functional uses (Section 3.3). In the Results section we first look at trends in CO2 emissions (Section 4.1). We then compare the carbon footprints of different socio-economic segments, and investigate how CO2 is used in support of high level functional uses (Section 4.2). The Assumptions and Limitations section comes next (Section 5). In the Discussion we synthesize the salient findings and comment on their relevance for policy-makers.

Section snippets

Background

As suggested above, a good starting point for investigating CO2 emissions due to consumption is to look at expenditures. UK household expenditure has risen by 49% since 1990 and, as illustrated in Fig. 1, the highest increases have been in Communications, and Recreation and culture (237% and 195% respectively). In this paper one of the questions we ask is: to what extent has this increased expenditure resulted in rising energy use and associated CO2 emissions? In other words, has decoupling

Consumption accounting

As introduced earlier, when accounting from the consumption perspective, we take account of CO2 emissions induced by purchases of goods and services within the UK, whether the emissions occur in the UK or abroad. In this paper we account for four broad categories5:

  • a)

    CO2 embedded in goods and services purchased by households;

  • b)

    CO2 due to direct fuel use by households;

  • c)

    CO2 due to

UK national trends 1990–2004

The first question we address is what are the current trends in UK household CO2 emissions from the consumption perspective? The graph in Fig. 5 shows that emissions decreased slightly on average between 1990 and 1994.15 However, since 1999 they have been rising, with levels in 2004 being 15% higher than those in 1990. In order to explore this in more detail, Fig. 6 illustrates trends in total household energy use and CO2 emissions indexed to

Assumptions and limitations

This study is subject to the general assumptions and limitations of EIO which are well documented by, for example, Miller and Blair (1985). This section only covers material specific to this study.

As mentioned in the Introduction, the UK lacks authorised up-to-date datasets for EIO and hence all years after 1995 are modelled using the 1995 Leontief Inverse and Imports Use Matrices: therefore changes in industry structure since 1995 are not captured in the model. Furthermore, final demand is not

Discussion

In this study we have used a quasi-multi-regional input–output model (QMRIO) to show that, from the consumption perspective, CO2 emissions due to energy use attributable to UK households are estimated to be currently rising by approximately 3% per annum. This is in stark contrast to the proposed statutory goal in the UK's Climate Change Act of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions measured from the production perspective by 2050 (HM Government, 2008). During the study period (1990–2004)

Acknowledgements

We thank Joshua Thumim, Vicki White and Ian Preston at the Centre for Sustainable Energy for provision of fuel price matrices for use in LARA. We thank Peter Bradley, Eleni Papathanasopoulou and Philip Sinclair for their contributions to developing the framework on which this study has built. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions greatly improved the paper. The research is supported by funding from the ESRC Research Group on Lifestyles Values and Environment (RESOLVE)

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