What is the Origin of the Term Carbon Footprint?
Where does the term carbon footprint come from and how is it related to the oil and gas industry? This article explains the background.
Image credit: Matt Palmer
Here in this blog, I keep talking about the âcarbon footprintâ. But where does this term actually come from? And why is it also problematic? In this article, I will briefly explain the background.
The earliest origins of the term go back to the 1990s: in 1992, the Canadian William Rees published a scientific article in which he first spoke of the so-called âecological footprintâ. Two years later, the Swiss Mathis Wackernagel refined the method for calculating this ecological footprint in his doctoral thesis and dealt with the use of the concept in political decisions. (The PDF version is available here.) The ecological footprint refers to how much our planet can absorb in CO2 emissions (e.g. through forests or moors). A simple illustration is the calculation of how many Earths it would take if we continued our current lifestyle (at the moment: 1.75 Earths; source).
In 2004, the term âcarbon footprintâ entered public consciousness: it appeared in a commercial for the oil and gas company BP, developed by the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather. The TV spot (available here on YouTube) begins with the question âWhat size is your carbon footprint?â and later explains âWe can all do more to emit lessâ. At the end, the ad refers to a website at BP where you can have your personal carbon footprint calculated.
The BP commercial was widely criticized: it shifts the responsibility to each and every individual and suggests that it is crucial how environmentally friendly we behave. By addressing the audience with âIâ, âweâ and âyouâ, the commercial conveys the message that climate change is primarily a personal problem. BP does not mention in the commercial that its core business is to produce oil and gas and sell it at thousands of gas stations worldwide. According to a 2019 report, BP is the company with the sixth-highest greenhouse gas emissions worldwide since 1965 (source). BP itself would have the opportunity to act in a more climate-friendly way, but for example, in 2018 it was still developing new oil fields in the North Sea, where at its peak more than 4 million liters of crude oil are to be produced (source in a BP press release).
Thus, the BP campaign can be seen as an attempt at a diversionary tactic, in that we all concern ourselves with what we can do personally and do not focus on the political framework for corporations. When BP says that the problem is how each of us consumes petroleum, it distracts from the fact that BP is the one producing that petroleum and making profits from it. When BP says that it is about the footprint of every single person, it distracts from the fact that our daily lives are so intertwined with the use of petroleum that there is simply no decision about whether we want to use it or not. This intertwining is the basis of BPâs business. (Simple example: Your food was probably transported by truck to the store where you shop. In most cases, this truck burns diesel. It is simply not possible for individual consumers to buy a similar product at the store that was not transported by truck, because that product simply does not exist.)
The campaign becomes a diversionary tactic in particular when companies like BP continue to finance lobbying that supports stricter regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. For example, there are reports that BP and Shell supported lobby groups until 2020 that want to prevent stricter regulation of fossil fuel industries (source).
Photo by Patrick Hendry
It is not helpful if we compare our carbon footprint with other people and then criticize others if they do not live perfectly. You donât have to be an eco-saint to get involved in more climate protection. Those who apply unattainably high standards to climate activists and then criticize them for not meeting them ultimately only consolidate the current situation and prevent change to a better future.
For global climate change, it is not particularly important how a single person behaves - it is about a change in the economic system in which we live and which sets rules and incentives for companies. Much more important than trying to behave in a climate-friendly way as an individual is how we come to political decisions that put us on a path to the 1.5°C target: How quickly do we expand renewable energies? When do we phase out coal? How do we deal with companies that contribute to global warming and the destruction of our planet through their business model? Without profound systemic changes, it is in principle irrelevant whether an individual eats a beef steak or a lentil soup today.
It is important to act as a citizen rather than as a consumer. It is important which parties we vote for, what we demonstrate for and what we publicly support. Political decisions create options for action and make other behavior less attractive: The quality of the bicycle infrastructure influences how easy or difficult it is to live without a car. In order for us to be able to take out green electricity tariffs, there must be a market for them that is regulated by law. Subsidies for agriculture make a difference to how attractive cattle breeding is in relation to growing vegetables.
I use the term carbon footprint in this blog despite its origins in the oil industry. From my point of view, the term is helpful for comparing individual actions - even if it is not every single action that counts, but the sum of all actions. Other organizations that are not suspected of being close to the oil and gas industry also use the concept of the carbon footprint (such as the German Federal Environment Agency, which operates its own CO2 balance calculator, or Greenpeace). However, the story of the origin of the carbon footprint is important to bear in mind when someone has an incentive to distribute the supposed responsibility as widely as possible and make everyone a scapegoat. Without social and economic change, it is not possible, no matter how you personally behave.
If you would like to read more about this, here is a small selection of articles on other websites: