Consumer footprint calculator

Those who pay close attention to environmental matters are already aware of the Ecological footprint calculator . Those who have used it, even if they are already very aware of climate change issues, have often been surprised to find that they are living in an unsustainable way.

The European Commission’s Research Centre has now created its own calculator to establish the Consumer Footprint in relation to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). What is it, and what is it based on?

“The Consumer Footprint Calculator allows you to calculate the environmental impacts of your consumption pattern, as well as to evaluate how changes in your lifestyle may affect your personal footprint. It considers five areas of consumption, namely food, mobility, housing, household appliances, and household goods.

The tool is based on a life cycle thinking approach, meaning that it considers the impacts occurring along the entire life cycle of the products and the energy that you consume.

The Consumer Footprint Calculator covers 16 environmental impact indicators related to emissions generated into soil, water, and air as well as to resource use. These 16 indicators are those adopted in the European Commission Product Environmental Footprint method and can be summarised in a so-called “single score”. This Calculator allows you to evaluate the impacts of your consumption, to help achieve SDG 12 on responsible consumption, and many other Sustainable Development Goals.”

But let’s not kid ourselves! Even when replying to the calculator’s questions, the results will always be worrying since they will confirm the unsustainability of the current model of society in the EU. There is the possibility of a “consolation” compared with the other calculator, however: and that is discovering that the most virtuous, despite living unsustainably, generally have a less negative impact than the average European citizen. Careful though! This does not mean that we can be satisfied with the lesser evil and give up trying to improve our environmental and consumer footprints.

Consumer Footprint Calculator : https://knowsdgs.jrc.ec.europa.eu/cfc

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