Accounting for the Ecological Footprint of Materials in Consumer Goods at the Urban Scale

Meidad Kissinger, Cornelia Sussman, Jennie Moore and William E. Rees
Additional contact information
Meidad Kissinger: Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, 8410501, Israel
Cornelia Sussman: School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z2, Canada
Jennie Moore: School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z2, Canada
William E. Rees: School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z2, Canada

Sustainability, 2013, vol. 5, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: Ecological footprint analysis (EFA) can be used by cities to account for their on-going demands on global renewable resources. To date, EFA has not been fully implemented as an urban policy and planning tool in part due to limitations of local data availability. In this paper we focus on the material consumption component of the urban ecological footprint and identify the ‘component, solid waste life cycle assessment approach’ as one that overcomes data limitations by using data many cities regularly collect: municipal, solid waste composition data which serves as a proxy for material consumption. The approach requires energy use and/or carbon dioxide emissions data from process LCA studies as well as agricultural and forest land data for calculation of a material’s ecological footprint conversion value. We reviewed the process LCA literature for twelve materials commonly consumed in cities and determined ecological footprint conversion values for each. We found a limited number of original LCA studies but were able to generate a range of values for each material. Our set of values highlights the importance for cities to identify both the quantities consumed and per unit production impacts of a material. Some materials like textiles and aluminum have high ecological footprints but make up relatively smaller proportions of urban waste streams than products like paper and diapers. Local government use of the solid waste LCA approach helps to clearly identify the ecological loads associated with the waste they manage on behalf of their residents. This direct connection can be used to communicate to citizens about stewardship, recycling and ecologically responsible consumption choices that contribute to urban sustainability.

Keywords: urban sustainability; ecological footprint analysis; life cycle assessment; material consumption; waste management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/5/1960/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/5/1960/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:5:y:2013:i:5:p:1960-1973:d:25428

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().