What is a Carbon footprint?

Baby walking in perched grass barefoot

Introduction

What is a carbon footprint? We hear a lot about reducing it but no one knows the exact definition especially shopping. The traditional meaning states a calculated value or index that makes it possible to compare the total amount of greenhouse gases that an activity, product, company or country adds to the atmosphere.

When it pertains to clothes, the total carbon footprint (how much Co2 released) of an item refers to the entire production cycle, shipment to supply chains, its purchase and its disposal. A big part of a clothes carbon footprint comes from production and disposal. For clothes, the time it takes to break down after disposal remains the biggest problem on the consumer side of the supply chain. The carbon footprint of the USA is 20.7 cubic tonnes and is about 3 times higher than other developed countries.

who coined the term

The carbon footprint concept is related to and grew out of the older idea of ecological footprint, a concept invented in the early 1990s by Canadian ecologist William Rees and Swiss-born regional planner Mathis Wackernagel at the University of British Columbia. An ecological footprint is the total area of land required to sustain an activity or population. It includes environmental impacts, such as water use and the amount of land used for food production. 

Originally, the ecological footprint focused on land use and deforestation but soon Ecologist realized that humans also played a role in global warming (caused by increasing CO2 in earth’s atmosphere hence raising temperatures). 

How does the carbon footprint relate to global warming?

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) stops heat from entering the atmosphere. It disrupts the natural water cycle, making it difficult for water to enter and leave the atmosphere. CO2 reflects the heat released from the earth back to the Earth causing rapid evaporation of water but stops water from reforming into rain.

This heat reflection causes the greenhouse effect. It seems like a dome surrounds the earth preventing it from cooling itself. 

As the heat gets trap in the atmosphere, the collective temperature rises, thus global warming.

So how do we calculate and reduce our own footprint? Read our next blog to learn more.