Introduction
This Impact tool was developed by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) and the Centre for Energy and the Environment at the University of Exeter gives communities usable data on carbon emissions that is easy to interpret and easy to share.
It tells you how people in the parish travel and heat their homes, and other activities in the area that contribute to the local carbon emissions total. Identifying the main ‘carbon impact areas’ in a parish helps focus where community-based action can make the biggest difference to cutting emissions.
Type of carbon footprint
The term Carbon Footprint is widely used to denote emissions associated with human activity. It lacks a clear scientific definition and variations may include a number of considerations. The first of these is the inclusion or omission of greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide (CO2). If included, greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide are weighted by their global warming potential to produce a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) value. The approach taken here has been to include all greenhouse gases and present results as t CO2 eq (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent).
A footprint for a geographic area (what this tool considers) may be produced on a strict territorial basis (all emissions occurring within the area) or on a consumption basis (all emissions caused by residents of the area, regardless of where geographically they occur). Territorial emissions include those from all industry, agriculture and transport activity within the area (even if the agricultural output is consumed in a different place). Consumption-based emissions include upstream and downstream emissions from residents’ consumption of manufactured goods, food and their own transport activity, regardless of where the emissions occur.
Hope Valley emissions
Carbon emission data for parishes in Hope Valley was downloaded from the Impact Community carbon calculator website. Two datasets were downloaded: carbon emissions from consumption per household and carbon emissions from production as total per parish. Figure 1 shows that most parishes apart from Aston and Hope exceeded the UK median emissions per household of 17 tonnes. A fairly ambitious target to aim for in 2021 might be 10 tonnes per household. Table 2 shows total emissions from production in each parish. One can see immediately to huge impact cement production has on total emissions. This production is consumed nationally.
Figure 1 Carbon emissions from consumption per household
Table 1 Carbon emissions from production per parish
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Table 2 Sources for carbon emissions from consumption
Table 3 Sources carbon emissions from production
Impact tool devised by University of Exeter and Centre for Sustainable Energy
Introduction
This Impact tool was developed by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) and the Centre for Energy and the Environment at the University of Exeter. It was created in response to a perceived need for places smaller than local authority areas but larger than single households to estimate their “carbon footprint”.
Type of carbon footprint
The term Carbon Footprint is widely used to denote emissions associated with human activity. It lacks a clear scientific definition and variations may include a number of considerations. The first of these is the inclusion or omission of greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide (CO2). If included, greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide are weighted by their global warming potential to produce a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) value. The approach taken here has been to include all greenhouse gases and present results as t CO2 eq (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent).
A footprint for a geographic area (what this tool considers) may be produced on a strict territorial basis (all emissions occurring within the area) or on a consumption basis (all emissions caused by residents of the area, regardless of where geographically they occur). Territorial emissions include those from all industry, agriculture and transport activity within the area (even if the agricultural output is consumed in a different place). Consumption-based emissions include upstream and downstream emissions from residents’ consumption of manufactured goods, food and their own transport activity, regardless of where the emissions occur.
At a national level, the UK consumption footprint is larger than the territorial footprint as in net terms we “import” more emissions than we “export” through the trade of goods and services. Individual and household footprints are produced on a consumption basis.
The results may be stated as the total absolute emissions for a municipality, individual or corporate entity, or normalised per unit land area, per head of population or per household. This approach provides results in absolute terms, and per household.
