Lifestyles - across policy areas.
Welcome
Moving into the future.
One of the key challenges for the world in dealing with climate change is how to achieve truly sustainable mobility. In the EU alone, the sector represents 27% of the total emissions, and steadily growing.
The goal of the Climate Campaigners app in the mobility category is to calculate the annual carbon footprint (GHG emissions as kgCO2eq) for app users’ annual personal mobility, including direct GHG emissions and emissions from fuel and energy production for selected mobility modes.
Life cycle–related GHG emissions for different mobility modes can typically be linked to direct emissions from fuel combustion, emissions from fuel or energy production, vehicle manufacturing, vehicle end-of-life processing, and infrastructure building. The majority of GHG emissions from mobility are, however, caused directly by burning fossil fuels (petrol and diesel) in internal combustion engines.
The solutions for sustainable mobility are out there, though - and the demands and creativity of ordinary citizens will lead the way. On this page, we’ll post useful things around mobility from and related to the Climate Campaigners project.
Home is where the heart is.
It’s time to reimagine how we design, construct and renovate buildings. Whether it’s on an industrial and societal scale, or the kind of unit we have the most personal power over our homes.
Globally, buildings and construction account for 29% of energy-related GHG emissions which, in turn, account for approximately two-thirds of all global GHG emissions. The energy consumption of buildings account for approximately 75–80% of the life cycle GHG emissions whereas the rest are embodied emissions deriving from, for example, construction, maintenance, and the end-of-life stages.
The goal of the CAMPAIGNers app in the housing category is to calculate the annual carbon footprint (GHG emissions as kgCO2eq) for app users’ housing, including direct and indirect GHG emissions from heating and electricity production and embodied emissions from construction, maintenance, and the end-of-life stages.
On this page, we’ll post useful things around housing from and related to the Climate Campaigners project.
You are what you eat.
It’s hard to underrate the importance of improving the way we produce and consume food, at a collective scale, including concrete shifts like the one to a more plant-based diet. The great thing is that in a sustainable food system, not only are there huge wins from a climate and environmental perspective - health-related, ethical and financial benefits are also there to enjoy.
Globally, GHG emissions related to food systems represented 34% of total GHG emissions in 2015. The majority of these emissions, 71%, were from agriculture and associated land-use and land-use change activities. The remaining emissions were from supply chain activities such as transport, consumption, packaging, industrial processes, and fuel production. Approximately 57% of nutrition-related GHG emissions are from animal-based food production.
In our project, citizens are encouraged and supported to explore ways to a more climate-friendly food consumption. It’s worth noting that in the app, for calculating an exact carbon footprint related to nutrition, multiple questions would need to be answered by users, such as which type and how many different proteins they eat. For some users, that might be difficult. Therefore, no product- specific questions regarding diet are asked. Instead, the average values of different diets at national levels are used, and users are only asked general questions about their diet and the amount of food they consume.
On this page, we’ll post useful things around food from and related to the Climate Campaigners project.
Meaningful consumption, across the board.
We live in a social and economic system where continuous consumption of various products is expected, even those who are far from being directly related to our survival. As with previous specific categories, consumption in general should take place within the planetary boundaries - and there are many ways we can move closer to such a state.
In the Climate Campaigners project, sectors of the economy that are included here are for example clothing/textiles, manufactured products, leisure and services, as well as emissions from waste management. The users of the app are asked if they buy clothes and products or consume services more than or less than an average citizen in their country. If their consumption is less than the average, their carbon footprint from that category is reduced by 50%. If the user consumes more, the carbon footprint is increased by 50%. A concrete example: needless to say, buying secondhand clothes and other products causes fewer GHG emissions than buying new ones for clothes, on average 63.5% life cycle energy savings. This would mean that a user’s calculated emissions in the app would be reduced by those 63.5%.
On this page, we’ll post useful things around other forms of consumption from and related to the Climate Campaigners project.
