The bare necessities: How much household carbon do we really need?

By Angela Druckman, Tim Jackson. Ecological Economics, 2010

137 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The consumption patterns of Western nations are generally deemed to be unsustainable. Yet there is little attempt to restrain either material throughput or income growth. Nonetheless, in the face of the need to make 'deep' cuts in carbon emissions (for instance), consumption restraint may be a perfectly legitimate response. This paper explores the potential for a Reduced Consumption Scenario in the UK constructed by assuming that households achieve a specific 'minimum income standard' which is deemed to provide a decent life for each household type. The minimum income standards are taken from a recent study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and include not only subsistence commodities such as food, warmth and shelter but also the means to participate effectively in society. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation study produced detailed household expenditure budgets for these income standards. The paper uses an environmentally extended Quasi-Multi-Regional Input-Output model to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions required in the production and distribution of all goods and services purchased according to these budgets. Our results show that average household GHG emissions in the UK would be around 37% lower in the Reduced Consumption Scenario than they are currently. We explore several implications of these findings including: the need to change social norms around consumption, the need for investment to improve the thermal performance of homes and the need to develop new transport infrastructures. We also address the potential to reduce emissions below the level achieved in this Scenario and discuss the implications for policy.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/18e0abb1e720a61aaac2be6597f6e33203f2ec18

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Citations in the corpus

Household carbon emission research: An analytical review of measurement, influencing factors and mitigation prospects (2015, unknown): “Based on this original model, other developed models include the United Kingdom Quasi-Multi-Regional Input–Output (QMRIO) models (Druckman and Jackson, 2009, 2010) and the Norwegian Environmentally Expanded Input-Output models (Larsen and Hertwich, 2011) to widen the scope.”
Income inequality and carbon consumption: Evidence from Environmental Engel curves (2019, background): “For example, Druckman and Jackson (2010) estimate minimal GHG emissions requirements based on “minimum income standard” budgets needed to provide a “decent life”.”
Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: An international analysis of social provisioning (2021, background): “While a large share of the energy footprints of affluent countries appears to be unnecessary for need satisfaction (see also Chitnis et al., 2014; Druckman and Jackson, 2010; Oswald et al., 2020), they use up a substantial share of the dwindling global carbon budget which would be required for other”
Low carbon lifestyles: A framework to structure consumption strategies and options to reduce carbon footprints (2016, background): “In order to realize deep cuts in carbon emissions, consumption level restraint in richer nations is considered a legitimate climate mitigation option (Druckman and Jackson, 2010).”
Who emits most? Associations between socio-economic factors and UK households' home energy, transport, indirect and total CO2 emissions (2013, background): “Fairness claims are often made either on the basis of responsibility for emissions (the “polluter pays principle”), the capacity to bear mitigation costs, and potential additional “needs” for emissions that do not arise from someone's own choice but from “structural” circumstances (Baer, 2013; Druck”
Transforming Consumption: From Decoupling, to Behavior Change, to System Changes for Sustainable Consumption (2015, background): “As more researchers in the sustainable consumption community have come to share the need for strong sustainable consumption, the issue of how to achieve such changes in a politically, socially and economically viable manner has become a central research topic (78, 79, 82, 83).”
Decent Living Emissions: A Conceptual Framework (2012, methodology): “Finally, Smil uses broad correlation between human development indicators and energy use to suggest that societies typically need no less than 50–70 GJ/cap to provide basic rights and opportunities [42].”