A Descriptive Review of Carbon Footprint

Abstract

In the last couple of years, the expression ‘carbon footprint’ has been in use among meteorologist, especially in the United Kingdom. The usage of the expression is not unconnected with the fact that the challenge of climate change has been one of the topmost issues on political as well as corporate agenda. Therefore, calculations of carbon footprint have been in high demand. Scholars have proposed so many approaches to providing estimates. The methods runs from uncomplicated online calculations to other ones like complex life-cycle examination otherwise called input-output-based technique and tools. In spite of its ever-present use, it is clear that the term ‘carbon footprint’ does not have a generally acceptable academic definition. Thus, there is a dearth of clarifications of what ‘carbon footprint’ is in the scientific literature despite the fact that there are several studies or researches on energy as well as ecological economics which should have measured what precisely ‘carbon footprint’ is. Therefore, this particular paper is an attempt to explore the obvious inconsistency in the use of some terminology in both public and in the academic contexts. This has led to a suggestion of academic definitions based on generally accepted principles of accounting and modeling approaches. The paper treats questions of methodology like comprehensiveness, completeness, system boundaries, as well as units, also, the durability of most indicator.