How can people better understand their environmental impacts? An introduction to lifestyle calculators: what can they do and measure? Daily in the media we see information on keep global warming within the 1.5C limit sustainable living and lifestyles. Now with (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, COVID19 there is likely to be increasing interest Aalto University and D-mat ltd. 20191). in what and how we consume to live better. With the range of calculators being promoted, Articles cover how people can eat, move, live how can people best navigate their use? To and travel better and lighter and some even help clarify, the UN One Planet Network’s offer tools to help decision making, like Consumer Information and Sustainable footprinting calculators. Lifestyles & Education Programmes, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) and UN Calculators can help people (and organizations Environment Programme developed this that work with people) understand lifestyle overview of: sustainability impacts. The assumption being that the information will lead to behaviour 1. the context of planetary boundaries, change. 2. how people make (sustainability) decisions, More accurate lifestyle calculators are being 3. a summary of available types of calculators, created in response to a growing recognition their strengths and weaknesses and that lifestyles decisions and consumption representative examples.2 patterns are crucial for our well-being and to 1 https://iges.or.jp/en/publication_documents/pub/technicalreport/en/6719/15_Degree_Lifestyles_MainReport.pdf 2 The text was drafted by these organizations and reviewed by the Sustainable Lifestyles and Education Programme’s Advisory Committee and experts within UNEP. Photo credit: Unsplash – Carli Jeen Introduction to planetary boundaries: what can the planet support? Lifestyle footprint calculators can contribute to boundaries – climate change, novel entities, keeping consumption within planetary stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric boundaries. The concept of planetary aerosol loading, ocean acidification, freshwater boundaries (Rockstrom et al. 20093) presents use, land-system change, biogeochemical flows, spaces within which humans can operate and biosphere integrity – and the graph below function and keep the Earth within optimum displays the nine boundaries and provides a conditions for life and health. Exceeding colour scale indication of humanity’s impact: planetary boundaries causes tipping points to showing that four of the planetary boundaries occur and runaway environmental changes have already been exceeded (Steffen et al. (ibid.), which are harmful to humans and 2015). biodiversity. There are nine planetary Image: Steffen et al. (2015)4 Sustainable levels of living are those which metrics used correlate enough to enable them to allow the human population to remain within show how far humanity overshoots consumption planetary boundaries. The concept of and the levels of reductions needed. An sustainable living also includes well-being, additional core challenge is that because of the which cover health and security and that variables across individuals and the contexts everyone can have their needs met - living within which they live around the globe, there is better and lighter. no one sustainable lifestyle. Although lifestyle footprint calculators do not cover all aspects of planetary boundaries, the 3 https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a 4 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/1259855 How do people make daily decisions? Most people do not wake up with the intention to currently it is a niche group. Even people who harm the environment, nor to help it. They get want to live more sustainably, overwhelmingly up, eat, get dressed, take their kids to school, do not have access to affordable and desirable go to work, care for families or study. Most products and services. People may also not people live their lives making decisions to meet receive or know where to look for reliable their needs and aspirations. sustainability information and may feel alone in acting and therefore powerless. The amount of stuff people have in many parts of the world has increased in the past half- This underscores that beyond people, it is up to century, while in other areas many people still governments and business to provide better struggle to meet basic needs. The future now sustainability information, and to support and depends on how people will choose to live, work develop an enabling environment, including and play and on how governments and business green infrastructure and policies, new business develop an enabling environment that allows models, as well as support for community everyone to live better within planetary groups and education for sustainable boundaries. development to make sustainable living a reality5. In general, people do not change behavior based on what they should do, on data and The figure below highlights influences and the statistics nor on negative future scenarios (fear). contexts that influence people’s decision- People act to fulfill needs and live aspirations making. Calculators can help raise awareness of within their living context, and make decisions what impacts lifestyle decisions as well as the based on price, accessibility, effectiveness and relative impact of specific domains. additional criteria like well-being, or trending Nevertheless, without the ability to see options products. in the calculators, it remains harder for the general public to understand what actions to Sustainability may play a role for a subset of take and to motivate behavioural change. people in day-to-day decision making but Image: A Framework for shaping sustainable lifestyles 5 There are many resources available such as the UN Environment & ITC (2017) Guidelines for Providing Product Sustainability Information Footprint Calculator Types There are three main types of lifestyle footprint data of daily life choices: most commonly food/diet, calculators. Each type estimates human impact on housing, travel, leisure activities, and consumption the environment using a different methodology. of goods such as textiles. The ultimate purpose of these calculators is to raise It is important to note that the calculators do not awareness and understanding of the impact of always cover all areas of living (food, mobility, human behaviours and choices on the environment housing, consumer goods and tourism) and that to motivate behaviour change. The calculators underpinning data primarily comes from North provide a comparable number which summarises America and Europe which limits global use. Material Footprint Ecological Footprint Carbon Footprint tools which estimate the tools which estimate the area of land tools which provide an estimate amount of raw materials required to support essential life of an individual’s direct and consumed based on an services such as biomass production, indirect emission of individual’s average behaviours. air and water filtration and carbon greenhouse gases in a year They account for the raw sequestration by plants. These tools based on average behaviours. materials required to support are not universally accepted6 because Carbon footprint calculators human behaviours including they combine these processes and the convert expected greenhouse fossil fuels, biomass, metal ores, result is dominated by the carbon gases emitted by certain and non-metallic minerals. emissions, for which carbon footprints activities into a carbon dioxide already offer an internationally agreed equivalent figure. and scientifically valid approach. Calculators generate a figure which summarises information lifestyle calculators provide to people it data across a range of different common areas of is important that the calculators address certain daily life, most commonly food, housing, travel, principles such as those outlined in the Guidelines leisure activities, but also consumption of goods for providing product sustainability information and textiles. (UNEP & ITC 2017)8, developed by the Consumer Information Programme. Aligning calculators with There are challenges around accuracy given the the five fundamental principles of reliability, variations possible in these areas and around relevance, clarity, transparency and accessibility monitoring because calculators give snap shots and can lead to more credible and trusted sustainability people would have to continually calculate to track information that can guide people in their behaviour. changes. However, efforts are on-going to develop more transparent calculators with more holistic In addition to the types listed above, there are perspectives of an individual’s consumption calculators that measure impacts in specific areas footprint through applying full Life Cycle such as fashion or meat consumption. The issue Assessment results on environmental impacts, for with such calculators is that the limited focus on one example from the European Commission’s Joint lifestyle aspect can give a misleading sense of Research Centre7. sustainability and not represent the full picture. For example, someone who chooses to wear a lot of For the moment, there are few calculators second-hand clothes or is vegan could have high accessible to the public that go beyond taking a carbon impacts through flying, purchasing gadgets snapshot in time to accurately cover and enable or inefficient energy use in the home. monitoring of all lifestyle areas. To improve the 6 For example, in GEO-6 there is the following caveat: