Results for personal carbon footprint in 2022

As companies publish their annual report it is time to take a (carbon) stock of how last year went.

As I moved back to the Italian countryside from Copenhagen, I was very curious about the consequences of this move on my carbon footprint. The move was in fact taken also as a way to experiment what (economic) degrowth could mean on a personal level.

I say degrowth of course from a purely economic perspective, meaning slowing down from a lifestyle focused on working 8+ hours a day in a capital city, to a more balanced yet remote life, working half a day and farming (or attempting to!) own vegetables, and chilling (or yeah.. trying to chill) in the countryside with the family and dear ones. Growth of course can have different dimensions, not only an economic one. I personally don’t like the term degrowth at all, but I’d rather use shift in meaning/perspective/direction, or simply, evolution.

Anyways, for the many psychological reflections from this, you can read "Growing in the Sustainability Paradigm".

Instead, what this short note is about is the environmental consequence of that choice. Specifically, the carbon footprint that resulted from my lifestyle in 2022.

Unfortunately, I have no baseline for my carbon footprint before 2022, but still I think this was a fun and useful experiment. Particularly because I could experiment with the knowledge and tools that I have available to give shape to that blurred idea that I had of what my carbon footprint would be. So here I share what I think is interesting with you.

First of all, there are tons of tools out there to calculate your carbon footprint. Many are probably good. But if you know me, you know that I tend to have a tough head on certain things and therefore like to do things my own way. The nice thing about this is that I get to experiment and learn from first-hand experience (also I sweat more than necessary, but hey…no pain no gain the bodybuilders say).

So, I have created this spreadsheet (I called it the carbon footprint diary), which I have populated on a weekly/monthly basis with activity data and where I have plugged in emission factors for electricity, heating, transportation, food, other goods, etc. The emission factors come from reliable public and pay-to-use data sources (you can find more about the sources on the spreadsheet). All emission factors are as specific as I could find to the activities and locations of (my) interest. Often, as in the case of trains, factors even come from the specific companies (e.g., train companies). You can find the emission factors by unhiding the relevant sheet(s) in the document. For the LCA geeks: attributional modelling was chosen; transportation and energy are modelled based on operational emissions, while for foods and good, life cycle impacts are included. Important remarks: (1) I did not model emissions from the treatment of the waste I have generated (so room for improvement there for sure). (2) Food activity data is mostly based on an estimated average monthly consumption since it would have been too time consuming to enter each single grocery every time. However, important changes, for example on meat consumption or on homegrown vs purchased veggies, are included.

To briefly summarize the lifestyle, this entailed:

- Negligible car use on a day-to-day basis, sharing rides with friends, and a couple of long trips over the year

- Travelling through Europe only by train = 26,000 km over the year (more than half the equator!). Most of these km where travelled on high-speed trains that are powered by renewable energy.

- No flight

- Growing or purchasing local vegetables as much as possible (around 80% of the total), and almost no meat consumption

- Reasonable use of heating, cooling and electricity; purchasing things only when “necessary”… the usual things

I ended up my 2022 with a carbon footprint of 3.129 tCO2e.

You can see the overview on a monthly basis in the picture below. Noticeable how heating was of course higher during the winter months (and living in a big old house did not help). Purchase of goods was mostly in November and December (not out of Christmas though, but to purchase gear for my now ongoing adventure).