A Conceptual Framework for Constituting a Footprint Family
It makes sense to combine a selection of environmental footprints that address different aspects of environmental issues into an integrated system. This chapter starts with the idea of developing a footprint family from which most important footprints can
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A Conceptual Framework for Constituting a Footprint Family
Abstract It makes sense to combine a selection of environmental footprints that address different aspects of environmental issues into an integrated system. This chapter starts with the idea of developing a footprint family from which most important footprints can be compared and integrated. On the basis of literature review in related fields, the ecological, energy, carbon, and water footprints are employed as selected indicators to define a footprint family. A brief survey is presented to provide background information on each of the footprints with an emphasis on their main characteristics in a comparative sense. Although the four footprints differ in more aspects than only in the impacts that are addressed, the footprint family has proved effective in making use of them in a complementary way. We then evaluate the performance of the footprint family on data availability, coverage complementarity, methodological consistency, and policy relevance and propose solutions and suggestions for further improvement. The key conclusions are that the footprint family, which captures a broad spectrum of sustainability issues, is able to offer a more complete picture of environmental complexity for policy makers than single footprints and, in particular, in national-level studies. The research provides new insights into the distinction between environmental impact assessment (EIA) and environmental sustainability assessment (ESA), properly serving as a reference for multidisciplinary efforts in estimating planetary boundaries for global sustainability. Keywords Footprint family · Energy footprint · Carbon footprint · Water footprint · Characteristics · Performance evaluation · Planetary boundaries
2.1 Introduction Over the past decades, our Earth has witnessed a significant shift from local environmental issues to global environmental change associated with an irreversible decline in natural capital stocks and ecosystem services on a global scale (Oosthoek and Gills 2005). In striving to monitor the pressures humanity exerts on the environment, an integrated system where different impact categories can be measured through a set
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Fang, Environmental Footprints, SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61018-0_2
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2 A Conceptual Framework for Constituting a Footprint Family
of appropriate indicators is needed (Giljum et al. 2011). The indicators of environmental footprints have the potential to constitute a series of integrated systems with the purpose of providing a complete picture of environmental complexity (Ridoutt and Pfister 2013). The concept of “footprint” originates from the idea of ecological footprint which was formally introduced to the scientific community in the 1990s (Rees 1992, 1996; Wackernagel and Rees 1996, 1997; Wackernagel et al. 1999a, b). Since then, many different footprint-style indicators have been created and became
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