Last week, I began digging into the details of Saanich’s “four planets” ecological footprint, as calculated by CHRM Consulting. The report is available on the District of Saanich website.
I looked at our food consumption and associated food waste, which at 24 per cent is the largest share of the ecological footprint (setting aside the 46 per cent of the ecological footprint that is due to the local activities of the provincial and federal governments).
This week, I will look at the other three main categories — transportation, buildings, and consumables and waste.
Transportation, the next largest component after food, accounts for 17 per cent of Saanich’s footprint.
Fossil fuel (gasoline, diesel, aviation and marine fuel) accounts for almost all of that, including the fuel used to operate vehicles (60 per cent of the transportation footprint) and to extract, process and transport those fossil fuels (a further 28 per cent of the transport ecological footprint).
Another 10 per cent of the footprint is the energy embodied in the materials used to construct all those vehicles, which includes the impacts of extraction and processing of those materials, with the remaining two per cent being the land area taken up by roads and related infrastucture (except parking lots).
When we examine the ecological footprint by type of transportation, the largest contributor is light-duty vehicles (cars, light trucks) at 62 per cent, followed by air travel (22 per cent), heavy-duty vehicles (six per cent), off-road vehicles (four per cent) and BC Ferries and other watercraft (three per cent).
The reason for all the focus on private vehicle use and flying is obvious.
The third main category in Saanich’s overall ecological footprint, at seven per cent of the total, is buildings, and most (62 per cent) of the ecological footprint of buildings is due to the energy used to operate them — heating, cooling, lighting and so on.
A further 19 per cent of the ecological footprint of buildings is due to the materials and energy embodied in their construction (i.e. the land area needed to extract and process the materials used in construction, as well as the energy used for extraction, processing and construction) while a further 13 percent is due to the energy used to extract, process and transport the fuels used in the “operating” category. Finally, the remaining six per cent of the ecological footprint of buildings is the land area on which they sit.
The report also tells us that 65 per cent of the buildings’ footprint is attributable to residential buildings, with the rest due to a combination of commercial and institutional buildings.
The category of consumables and waste, which represent six per cent of Saanich’s ecological footprint, is actually calculated based on what is disposed of annually, based on a 2022 regional waste audit.
The assumption is that, on the one hand, “the majority of materials consumed are disposed within the year,” and on the other, the “steady flow of durable goods disposed every year [is] equivalent to the new durable goods supply entering the region.”
It also includes liquid waste, but that constitutes only a tiny fraction of the consumables and waste footprint.
The distinction between embodied materials and embodied energy is also important in this category.
Embodied materials — “the forest and crop areas needed to produce the disposed of materials such as paper, wood, and textiles” — make up 44 per cent of the ecological footprint of consumables and waste, with almost all the rest (52 per cent) being the embodied energy of those materials — “the emissions associated with producing the materials.”
Importantly, the emissions reported do not include methane emissions from landfill and sewage systems, since unlike carbon emissions, methane cannot be sequestered, so it cannot be converted to a land equivalent in order to calculate the ecological footprint. This is a useful reminder that, if anything, the ecological footprint underestimates the true impact of our activities.
The largest component of consumables — 44 per cent — is “non-compostable organics,” of which about 80 per cent is textiles. Paper comes next at 24 per cent, then plastic (12 per cent) and household hygiene products (nine per cent).
Next week, I will look at what all this means for local action. What should we focus on, where are the big wins and what policy actions do we need, not just locally, but provincially and federally, to create a One Planet region.
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy
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