Can footprinting inspire political as well as lifestyle change? Heather Hunt and Jenny Patient Sheffield Campaign against Climate Change
Apr 01, 2015
Can footprinting inspire political as well as lifestyle change?
Heather Hunt and Jenny Patient
Sheffield Campaign against Climate Change
SCACC petition to Sheffield City Council:“We recognise urgent action is needed now to
avert catastrophic climate change. Therefore we call on Sheffield Council to set targets to reduce
CO2 emissions across the city in line with keeping global temperature change below 2°C”
Global Steps www.bestfootforward.com
Sheffield’s footprint: 3 planets
Personal effort can reduce this to 2 planets
Here’s where we are now
Huge policy changesneeded to get to 1 planet
Context for Conversations
Intentions of our Action Research Gather information
systematically from our footprinting conversations
Engage Sheffield Council and Sheffield First Environment Partnership with our experience and findings
Our framework – conversational space and change at all levels
The Structure of our Conversations
We’re interested to know what Sheffield people think about climate change, and what we can all do about it.
How concerned are you about climate change? What is it that concerns you most about climate change?
Footprint dialogue, estimate and interpretation – number of planets
Asking about inspirations for personal actions and infrastructure changes in Sheffield that would help them to reduce their footprint
Findings – who engaged? Over 100 people 6 days across 4 festivals June,
July and August 2007. 51 female, 19 male, 16 in
some group combination Age estimates: 10 aged 60+,
57 aged 18-60, and 6 below 18 years
A broad cross-section of Sheffield people from different postal districts
Findings – how concerned? “How concerned
are you about climate change?”
High– Extremely – Very
Low – A bit– Not much– Not at all
77%
23%
Highconcern
Lowconcern
Findings – Climate Change Concerns
“I have small children, I want them to have a planet”
“Effect on me, my future – I might see hell break loose”
“It’s going to hit people in the poor world most, we’re all part of humanity, a huge shift in attitudes is required”
Findings – Climate Change Concerns “Scary – our weather changing.
These floods – first time I’ve thought how other people have to cope”
“Weather’s strange, think of the animals, everything really – storms and fires”
“If we get political will, everything will follow”
Findings – Footprints
86 footprints, mean score 254 = 2.5 planets
Possible scores between 100 and 450
Actual scores range 121 to 383
No marked gender or age patterns
Lower than SEI Sheffield average (3 planets) – may be biased by self-selection and self-assessment
Inspirations for Personal Actions and Infrastructure Changes
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35Nu
mbe
r of
sug
gest
ions
Food Waste Transport Holidays House Other
Personal Infrastructure
Asymmetric footprintsTransport + Holiday high score
Transport+Holiday low score
Food+Waste high score
NOTTs“Not Tried to”
11 footprintsAverage 330
LINCs“Low Income, No
Car”
11 footprintsAverage 263
Food+Waste low score
WILTs“With Income, Likes
Travel” 33 footprintsAverage 276
DERBs“Doing Effective
Reduced Behaviour”
31 footprintsAverage 200
How can we inspire political change? Conversations
with city people
Conversations with city leaders
Conversations we would like Your experience of using
footprinting for popular engagement around action on climate change
Your thoughts on how our information and experience can engage powers-that-be for infrastructure change