Owen, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-3872-9900 and Büchs, M. (2024) Examining changes in household carbon footprints across generations in the UK using decomposition analysis. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 28 (6). pp. 1786-1800. ISSN 1088-1980
Abstract
To meet climate targets, consumption-based household emissions need to fall rapidly. An important but still poorly understood question is whether generational change could contribute to decreases in emissions. It is sometimes assumed that younger generations such as Millennials and Generation Z are more concerned about climate change and have greener lifestyles than previous generations of the Silent Generation, Baby boomers, and Generation X, but carbon footprinting analysis typically focuses on age groups rather than comparing generations over time. This paper provides a first assessment of the change in consumption-based carbon footprints of the Silent, Baby boomer, Generation X, and Millennial generations within the United Kingdom between 2001 and 2020 and a comparison of the footprints of different generational groups. The analysis is based on environmentally extended input–output analysis, using the Living Costs and Food Survey and emission data from the UK multi-regional input–output database. We find some evidence for the hypothesis that younger generations have smaller footprints than older generations as Generation X and Millennial households have smaller carbon footprints compared to the generation before them at a similar life stage. We find that factors such as decarbonization, household occupancy, total expenditure, and changing consumption patterns contribute to the UK's changing carbon consumption emissions between 2001 and 2020, and the importance of these factors varies for different generational groups. However, future research that uses a longer time series is required to assess generational differences in carbon footprints over the whole lifespan of several generations.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Industrial Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society for Industrial Ecology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | carbon footprints; consumption-based accounting; effects of aging generations; industrial ecology; structural decomposition |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 14 Oct 2024 15:49 |
Last Modified: | 11 Feb 2025 11:42 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/jiec.13567 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:218272 |