Tools for Sustainability – Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)
March 28, 2008 by GREGORY HILTON , NEIL MILLER and amathew | Filed under: Life-Cycle-Analysis (LCA) [1], [4]
Hello to all participating in this EM discussion topic. For those of you who have not already reviewed my profile, My name is Greg Hilton and I am a RIT student participant in the Environmental Management Workshop.
I don’t know about you, but I am finding many of the EM discussion topics to be very intriguing. In researching the Life Cycle Analysis topic I was especially interested in the concept of the carbon footprint. For those of you that may not be familiar with this concept. A carbon footprint is the measure of impact human activities on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced (source; www.carbonfootprint.com). The purpose of developing and knowing the carbon footprint for a person or organization is to be able to relate their contribution and impact on global warming. There are several different models for calculating ones carbon footprint. By using the carbon footprint calculator found at http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx, I found my personal carbon footprint to be 19.653 tonnes. I was alarmed to find that, according to this information, my carbon footprint was almost 5 times that of the worldwide average of 4 tonnes. I can say that learning this information has made me think about some of my transportation and purchasing decisions.
I am interested in knowing others perspectives on the carbon footprint concept, what your carbon footprint is, and how you feel carbon foot-printing relates as a tool for sustainability? What are your thoughts?
Links to more information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_cycle_assessment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint
Greg,
Thank you for posting the carbon footprint calculator! That was an eye opener for me and is a good tool to show people their individual impact on our emissions. This might lead to people doing their own personal LSA to reduce their environmental impact.