Socioeconomic Status and Individual Carbon Footprints: A novel measure based on consumer income, spending, and sustainable policy initiatives

In recent years, increasingly more individuals report feeling a responsibility to live sustainably. This has come to include families, households, and even communities, as people and policymakers grapple with the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation at both local and global levels. Central to this sentiment is the topic of individual-level carbon emissions footprints and the role of consumer behavior in shaping the broader environmental impacts of communities. Understanding and appropriately measuring the scale and lifestyle associations of personal carbon footprints is essential for crafting effective strategies to mitigate climate change. This paper uses data from the UK and EU to present a novel methodology aimed at measuring individual carbon emissions based on income range, in-home energy use, and vehicle fuel type. By focusing on a few fundamental variables, we provide a tool for assessing individual carbon footprints that can be used by individuals across socioeconomic strata, and contribute to the existing research on small-scale and broader policy interventions for sustainability.