| The success of a business cannot be measured by
economic performance alone. These days, a firm’s social
responsibility and environmental impact are increasingly scrutinised,
and sometimes charged for.
“Sustainability calculators” are software utilities
that help quantify the environmental impacts of various human
activities and identify the actions that most effectively compensate
the environment. Often the solutions are given according to the
user’s budget. These calculators rely on emerging environmental
quantification concepts that allow easy comparisons between environmental
impacts of such diverse activities as traveling by plane, recycling
aluminum cans or insulating a house.
Some sustainability online calculators:
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The calculators are easy to use: the user enters data on, for example,
home energy use, recycling, eating habits or traveling. The software
calculates the environmental impact of each activity and adds them
up. A careful study of these figures can inspire changes in individual
behaviour and business planning.
About a dozen such calculators can be found on the Internet,
most of them using simple on-line forms. One of the first calculators
that appeared on the Internet was developed by “Redefining
Progress” — the developer of the methodology and applications
of ecological footprint. This calculator is based on 13 simple
questions, grouped into sections about food, transport and housing.
Other calculators were developed by government agencies, such
as the Environmental Protection Agency of Australia. Independent
organisations have developed others, including SafeClimate’s
carbon footprint calculator for the World Resources Institute.
The business sector is also active — the UK’s ClimateCare
Ltd. was among the first to launch an on-line utility that enables
users to calculate greenhouse emissions from flying, driving and
home energy use.
The REC’s Business and Environment Programme is developing
an Eco-efficiency Toolkit, which will give practical advice to
Central and Eastern European small and medium-sized enterprises.
There are three principle methods for measuring environmental
impact: the ecological rucksack, the ecological footprint and
the CO2-equivalent.
The ecological rucksack quantifies natural resource consumption
by calculating the overall weight of natural resources consumed
by human activities, services and product manufacturing. For example:
1,000 kilograms of minerals are needed to produce a five-gram
gold ring (this figure doubles if you add the converted value
of energy and chemical consumption at production). In a similar
way, your toothbrush will easily measure 1.5 kilograms if you
consider its entire environmental burden.
The ecological footprint provides a figure in hectares. These
calculators compute the area of arable land needed to supply a
certain amount of food or energy. They also show how much land
is needed to absorb waste and how much physical space is needed
for necessary infrastructure. Considering the total biologically
active area on Earth and the global human population, our planet
allows two hectares of “ecological footprint” for
each of us. Yet, on a global scale, according to the Living Planet
report of the World Wide Fund for Nature has already reached 2.3
hectare per person, and that figure is much higher for residents
of industrial countries.
With the growing concern over the emission of greenhouse gases
and the resulting global climate change, there are now calculators
that convert resource consumption figures into CO2 emissions.
These “carbon calculators” focus on the climate change
potential of different modes of transport, heating, electricity
use and waste generation.
Gabor Heves is an electronic networking
projects manager for the REC’s Information Programme |
