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3 Exploring Some Fundamentals of Environmental Footprints
3.1 Introduction
Over the past years, a rapid expansion of footprint-style indicators has been introduced by companies, governmental bodies, and non-governmental organizations,
particularly in the field of environmental and sustainability sciences, with the goal
of providing a series of pictures of what types of burden are imposed on the planet’s
environment, and to what extent. Nowadays footprints have reached worldwide popularity, and the environmental issues they are addressing become increasingly diverse,
such as climate change (carbon footprint), freshwater use (water footprint), land use
(land footprint), material use (material footprint), and so on.
Despite the prevalence of footprint indicators, most studies are narrowed down
to one or a few footprints; this, however, brings the risk of problem shifting, as a
decline in one footprint is often accompanied by undesirable increase in others. For
instance, although climate change in many cases dominates the total environmental
footprints of a product (Finkbeiner et al. 2014; Page et al. 2012), reducing the carbon
footprint is found to lead to a remarkable increase in other footprints (Laurent et al.
2012). Similarly, De Meester et al. (2011) report that 27% of a bioproduct’s carbon
footprint is cut at the expense of 93% extra land, water, and material footprints.
Since environmental issues are getting more and more complex arising from an
ever-expanding number of stressors and their interactions (Chapman and Maher
2014), a shift of focus from issues in isolation to simultaneous assessment in an
overall view is needed. Consequently, the concept of “footprint family” was born,
with the aim of informing policy makers about the overall environmental burden
under a single framework without losing the complexity of the big picture (Galli et al.
2012). It was originated from the combination of the classical carbon, water, and land
footprints, but gradually extended to accommodate more emerging footprints (Fang
et al. 2014; Ridoutt and Pfister 2013b).
The footprint family concept implies the importance of finding ways to tradeoff between different footprints and to minimize the total environmental footprints
from a system perspective, rather than emphasizing “net zero” solutions to individual
footprints. This gives rise to concern for weighting, as trade-offs among footprints
normally cannot be undertaken without any form of weighting (Finnveden et al.
2009; Ridoutt and Pfister 2013b). The weighting sets have always been a highly
controversial subject throughout integrated environmental assessment (Ahlroth et al.
2011). The difficulty of taking such a practice lies in the choice of weighting methods
and in the way to deal with uncertainty (Finnveden et al. 2009). This is why weighting
practices are basically lacking in present footprint family studies.
Nevertheless, when looking back at how different environmental footprints are
structured, we notice that some employ an inventory analysis merely, whereas
some others perform an inventory analysis but also an impact characterization. In
many cases, unfortunately, the underlying structure has been executed implicitly and
remains unexamined by footprint users. It is our conviction that lessons which can
be learned from the hidden elements in single footprints will enormously facilitate
the ongoing scientific discussions on footprint indicators, including the classification
3 Exploring Some Fundamentals of Environmental Footprints
3.1 Introduction
Over the past years, a rapid expansion of footprint-style indicators has been introduced by companies, governmental bodies, and non-governmental organizations,
particularly in the field of environmental and sustainability sciences, with the goal
of providing a series of pictures of what types of burden are imposed on the planet’s
environment, and to what extent. Nowadays footprints have reached worldwide popularity, and the environmental issues they are addressing become increasingly diverse,
such as climate change (carbon footprint), freshwater use (water footprint), land use
(land footprint), material use (material footprint), and so on.
Despite the prevalence of footprint indicators, most studies are narrowed down
to one or a few footprints; this, however, brings the risk of problem shifting, as a
decline in one footprint is often accompanied by undesirable increase in others. For
instance, although climate change in many cases dominates the total environmental
footprints of a product (Finkbeiner et al. 2014; Page et al. 2012), reducing the carbon
footprint is found to lead to a remarkable increase in other footprints (Laurent et al.
2012). Similarly, De Meester et al. (2011) report that 27% of a bioproduct’s carbon
footprint is cut at the expense of 93% extra land, water, and material footprints.
Since environmental issues are getting more and more complex arising from an
ever-expanding number of stressors and their interactions (Chapman and Maher
2014), a shift of focus from issues in isolation to simultaneous assessment in an
overall view is needed. Consequently, the concept of “footprint family” was born,
with the aim of informing policy makers about the overall environmental burden
under a single framework without losing the complexity of the big picture (Galli et al.
2012). It was originated from the combination of the classical carbon, water, and land
footprints, but gradually extended to accommodate more emerging footprints (Fang
et al. 2014; Ridoutt and Pfister 2013b).
The footprint family concept implies the importance of finding ways to tradeoff between different footprints and to minimize the total environmental footprints
from a system perspective, rather than emphasizing “net zero” solutions to individual
footprints. This gives rise to concern for weighting, as trade-offs among footprints
normally cannot be undertaken without any form of weighting (Finnveden et al.
2009; Ridoutt and Pfister 2013b). The weighting sets have always been a highly
controversial subject throughout integrated environmental assessment (Ahlroth et al.
2011). The difficulty of taking such a practice lies in the choice of weighting methods
and in the way to deal with uncertainty (Finnveden et al. 2009). This is why weighting
practices are basically lacking in present footprint family studies.
Nevertheless, when looking back at how different environmental footprints are
structured, we notice that some employ an inventory analysis merely, whereas
some others perform an inventory analysis but also an impact characterization. In
many cases, unfortunately, the underlying structure has been executed implicitly and
remains unexamined by footprint users. It is our conviction that lessons which can
be learned from the hidden elements in single footprints will enormously facilitate
the ongoing scientific discussions on footprint indicators, including the classification