Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators
Personal travelling unfavourably contributes to the emissions of greenhouse gases, which adversely causes long-term damage to the climate. In order to reduce the associated negative impacts of such activities on the environment, there is a wide consensus that enhancements and innovations in the effi...
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my.um.eprints.264052022-02-28T00:19:32Z http://eprints.um.edu.my/26405/ Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators Bekaroo, Girish Roopowa, Divesh Zakari, Abubakar Niemeier, Debbie QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science Personal travelling unfavourably contributes to the emissions of greenhouse gases, which adversely causes long-term damage to the climate. In order to reduce the associated negative impacts of such activities on the environment, there is a wide consensus that enhancements and innovations in the efficiency of vehicles will not be enough, but behavioural changes are needed. For this, individuals should be able to measure their travel-related carbon emissions, and such emissions could be determined by using personal carbon footprint calculators, which proliferated during the previous decade. However, various research questions related to such calculators are yet to be answered in published literature. As such, this paper investigates how key transport-based calculators account for emissions from personal transport-related activities following a top-down analysis. In this endeavour, ten such calculators are investigated through a set of formulated research questions to analyse their scope, calculation approach used, transparency, consistency of results, communication methods utilized and platform differences. Results revealed that the calculators have varying granularity, have limited transparency, provide significantly inconsistent results in some cases and are not fully engaging end users. Based on limitations identified, recommendations have been proposed through a taxonomy to guide policy-makers towards improving such tools. Springer Heidelberg 2021-02 Article PeerReviewed Bekaroo, Girish and Roopowa, Divesh and Zakari, Abubakar and Niemeier, Debbie (2021) Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 28 (7). pp. 8853-8872. ISSN 0944-1344, DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11179-z <https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11179-z>. 10.1007/s11356-020-11179-z |
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QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science Bekaroo, Girish Roopowa, Divesh Zakari, Abubakar Niemeier, Debbie Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators |
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Personal travelling unfavourably contributes to the emissions of greenhouse gases, which adversely causes long-term damage to the climate. In order to reduce the associated negative impacts of such activities on the environment, there is a wide consensus that enhancements and innovations in the efficiency of vehicles will not be enough, but behavioural changes are needed. For this, individuals should be able to measure their travel-related carbon emissions, and such emissions could be determined by using personal carbon footprint calculators, which proliferated during the previous decade. However, various research questions related to such calculators are yet to be answered in published literature. As such, this paper investigates how key transport-based calculators account for emissions from personal transport-related activities following a top-down analysis. In this endeavour, ten such calculators are investigated through a set of formulated research questions to analyse their scope, calculation approach used, transparency, consistency of results, communication methods utilized and platform differences. Results revealed that the calculators have varying granularity, have limited transparency, provide significantly inconsistent results in some cases and are not fully engaging end users. Based on limitations identified, recommendations have been proposed through a taxonomy to guide policy-makers towards improving such tools. |
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Article |
author |
Bekaroo, Girish Roopowa, Divesh Zakari, Abubakar Niemeier, Debbie |
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Bekaroo, Girish Roopowa, Divesh Zakari, Abubakar Niemeier, Debbie |
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Bekaroo, Girish |
title |
Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators |
title_short |
Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators |
title_full |
Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators |
title_fullStr |
Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators |
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Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: Insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators |
title_sort |
calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators |
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Springer Heidelberg |
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2021 |
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http://eprints.um.edu.my/26405/ |
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1735409408403308544 |
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13.18916 |