gilded research project carbon calculator

Vera Peters, Jan Vávra Methods and results of a CO2 calculator

GILDED research project

carbon calculator

Methods and results

Vera Peters (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PIK)

Jan Vávra (University of South Bohemia)


Study Design of

GILDED

• Focus of the project is on household energy consumption and CO2 emissions and social psychological, sociological and structural factors influencing it

• Collaborative research: Case studies in 5 European countries: (A) Scotland: Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire (B) Germany: Potsdam and Potsdam-Mittelmark (C) Hungary: Debrecen and Hajdú-Bihar County (D) The Netherlands: Assen and Assen Municipality (E) The Czech Republic: České Budějovice and Budějoviceshire

• Quantitative Household survey 2010 & 2011 including an CO2-calculator → in 2010 n=2.486

• Experimental design: combination of three intervention elements


Survey Design • Cluster Sampling, Drop and Collect

• Intevention elements for experimental group

Czech Republic

Germany

Total target sample 5000 1842

Number of questionnaires returned 500 543

201

0

Response rate 10% 29%

Number of questionnaires returned 309 320

Drop-out rate between 2010 and 2011 38% 41%

201

1

Number of Respondents a CO2 footprint could be calculated for

292 300

• Response Rates


CO2 footprinting as a mobilizing

tool in the field of climate protection

• Environmental behaviour vs. personal CO2 footprint as a measure of the personal environmental impact

• energy consumption vs. CO2-e emissions

• Has not been applied a lot in surveys yet


Design of the personal CO2 Calculator Definition: general carbon footprint as the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions measured in tons of CO2-equivalents, which is required to satisfy a given consumption (Minx et al., 2009).

Schächtele and Hertle (2007)


Survey Data


Calculations - national data and coefficients of different countries were used when

possible

Emission factors for electricity, additionally the emission factor for green electricity based on Gemis 4.5 (Öko-Institut)

Emission factors for heating, based on Klimaktiv 2.0

Share of energy sources used for heating 2011

57,9%

15,7%

19,5%

29,6% 25,8%

13,0%

2,8%17,4% 8,7%

2,4% 1,0% 6,2%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Germany

Czech Republic

wood/biomass (0,029 CO2-e kg/kWh) district heating (0,030 CO2-e kg/kWh)

natural gas (0,216 CO2-e kg/kWh) heating oil (0.302 CO2-e kg/kWh)

coal (0.427 CO2-e kg/kWh) electricity (0,688/ 0,627/0,494 CO2-e kg/kWh)

others

German electricity mix CO2-e kg/kWh 0.627

Czech electricity mix CO2-e kg/kWh 0.688

UK electricity mix CO2-e kg/kWh 0.494

German green electricity CO2-e kg/kWh 0.04


First Results of the the CO2 Calculatur (a) Missing Data

33,451,4 48,8

64,6

66,648,6 51,2

35,4

0

20

40

60

80

100

Heating Electricity Heating Electricity

Czech Sample German Sample

Perc

en

tag

e o

f re

sp

on

den

ts

estimated by

self-reported

behaviour

filled by

respondents

3% 0%

34%22%

29%

1%

21%

4%

68%74%

41% 42%

25%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Insulation Age heating

system?

Type of

electricity

Equipment

on stand-by

Duration

shower

km/year car km/year

train (long

distance)

Age

dishwasher

(appr.)

efficiency

class

dishwasher

Age fridge-

freezer

(appr.)

efficiency

class fridge-

freezer

Perc

en

tag

e o

f M

issin

gs

GER CZ

(b) Self-reported behaviour vs. energy bills


First Results of the the CO2 Calculatur (c) Extreme & mistaken Data

76,0

59,4

8,5

68,875,7

24,8

0

20

40

60

80

Regional Seasonal Organic Regional Seasonal Organic


Pe

rce

nta

ge

of

res

po

nd

en

ts

(d) Biased data (normative topic)


Quality of the Data

Pearson's r for Bills * Predictions

Electricity Heating

Czech ,469*** ,510***

rural ,393*** ,451***

urban ,450*** ,668***

German ,551*** ,194**

rural ,492*** -,168

urban ,718*** ,418***


CO2 calculations

2,21,8

1,1

0,7

1,1

1,6

0,20,4

1,71,6

0,0

1,0

2,0

3,0

4,0

5,0

6,0

7,0

Czech Sample (N=434) German Sample (N=442)

per

cap

ita e

mis

sio

ns i

n t

on

s C

O2-e

Food

Flight

Car

Electricity

Heating

6,3 6,1

Mean CO2-e footprint per capita (in Germany) + ca. 1,1 t p. c. share of

public Emissions + ca. 3 t consumption

ca. 10 t


Comparison rural and urban data

2,2 2,21,6

2,1

0,91,4

0,7

0,8

1,0

1,1

1,3

1,8

0,2

0,1

0,6

0,21,6

1,61,7

1,7

0,0

1,0

2,0

3,0

4,0

5,0

6,0

7,0

urban rural urban rural


per

cap

ita e

mis

sio

ns i

n t

on

s C

O2-e

Food

Flight

Car

Electricity

Heating

6,1 5,8

6,5 6,5


Conclusions

- Interesting tool to estimate the overall environmental impact of individuals; but there are still aspects of energy consumption missing

- Estimations for heating and electricity appear to be of good quality (exception heating in German rural sample)

- But high amount of missing data

- For better results, more effort has to be but into the collection process: preferably direct interviews


References & Thank you! Minx, J. C., Wiedmann, T., Wood, R., Peters, G. P., Lenzen, M., Owen, A., … (2009). Input-output

analysis and carbon footprinting: an overview of application. Economic Systems Research, 21(3), 187–216.

Klimaktiv (n.d.) CO2-Calculator Klimaktiv 2.0, retrieved from http://klimaktiv.klimaktiv-CO2-582 rechner.de

.

Öko-Institut (n.d.), GEMIS 4.5 (Globales emissions-modell integrierter systeme). Retrieved from http://www.gemis.de/

Schächtele, K. & Hertle, H. (2007). Die CO2 Bilanz des Bürgers: Recherche für ein internetbasiertes Tool zur Erstellung persönlicher CO2 Bilanzen. (CO2-Calculations for Citizens: Research for an online-based tool for personal CO2-calculations). Retrieved from http://www.umweltdaten.de/publikationen/fpdf-l/3327.pdf

Contact Vera Peters, [email protected] Jan Vávra, [email protected]

http://www.gemis.de/

mailto:[email protected]



gilded research project carbon calculator

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