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