A geographically and socio-economically disaggregated local household consumption model for the UK

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2007.05.004

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 16, Issue 7, May 2008, Pages 870-880

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2007.05.004 Get rights and content

Abstract

A key challenge for local environmental and economic planning is to predict resource flows and material waste arisings at a high level of geographical localisation. This paper presents an approach to household consumption modelling in which the material demands of small socio-economically homogeneous neighbourhoods are estimated on the basis of consumer expenditure data in conjunction with Census data. Household waste arisings are estimated through incorporation of a household metabolism model. Selected material flows of consumer commodities, such as household appliances, carpets and clothing, are examined in case study areas representing extremes of relative deprivation, and neighbourhoods representing typical examples of the UK National Output Area Classification (OAC). The model will be of use in sustainable consumption policy-making and local waste strategy planning.

Introduction

Materially intensive consumption patterns and lifestyles present a major challenge to sustainability: resources are finite; there is limited capacity provided by the environment for disposal of wastes; and the use of materials is contributing to global environmental problems such as climate change [1], [2], [3], [4]. In particular, the increasing quantity of waste produced by households has significant environmental impacts. For example, landfill sites produce toxic leachate and greenhouse gases, and there is a scarcity of sites available for landfill. Traditionally, waste has been treated as an ‘end of pipe’ problem, but there is now a move amongst policy-makers to address the problem of waste by taking a whole life cycle approach to resource and waste management. Accordingly, the emphasis is now focused more towards reducing the demand for new resources, involving, for example, eco-design of goods, with increasing rates of repair, re-use, re-manufacture and recycling, thus aiming to achieve waste reduction. The starting point for such an approach must be an understanding of the upstream flow of resources through the economy and through households [5], [6].

The Local Area Resource Analysis (LARA) model described in this paper presents a framework that maps resource use, from a consumption perspective, through UK households grouped by highly socio-economically and geographically disaggregated areas, and relates resource use to waste arisings. Results generated by LARA add to the evidence base in several ways. First, they can be used to identify the demand for specific commodity types (and waste arisings) in a given geographical area. Next, they can be used to identify when and where opportunities for repair, re-use, re-manufacture and recycling arise and match these opportunities to available re-use or recycling facilities. Furthermore, LARA can start to answer questions about the resource consumption of specific socio-economic and lifestyle groups. Finally, LARA can, in principal, relate household resource use to local institutional infrastructure, and this will give us an insight into the extent to which households are “locked” into unsustainable consumption patterns through the infrastructure in which they operate [7], [8], [9].

LARA originated from an objective to estimate the waste arisings from households. The environmental impacts of those arisings depend on a number of factors, including the toxicity and fate of the wastes. A full life cycle assessment (LCA) of waste arising (or indeed of resource use) is beyond the scope of this paper [10], [11], [12]. Rather, LARA is a pragmatic framework that adopts a streamlined approach to environmental assessment based on principles of materials flow analysis [4], [13], [14]. Its strength lies in its ability to estimate very specific material demand and waste arisings in highly geographically and socio-demographically disaggregated areas.

In pursuit of these aims, this paper is organised as follows. The methodological approach adopted is described in Section 2, and the assumptions and limitations are outlined in Section 2.4. In Sections 3.1 Commodity demand in typical OAC areas, 3.2 Commodity demand in areas of contrasting relative deprivation, material demands for selected consumer commodities (household appliances, carpets, and women's and girls' outer garments) for selected case study areas are presented, and estimation of waste arisings is contained in Section 3.3. A discussion concerning validation of the model is provided in Section 3.4. This paper concludes by describing the contribution of the model to the evidence base for policy-making, and includes recommendations concerning data provision. A glossary of terms is placed after the conclusion.

Section snippets

Methodological approach

This paper describes a Local Area Resource Analysis (LARA) model, and presents an example of one of its uses. LARA quantifies average household expenditure of small socio-economically homogeneous local areas in England and Wales, and by applying the mass balance principle, which states that resource flows into a system must equal the resource flows that come out of the system plus stock accumulated [15], material demand is calculated. As an example, this paper shows how the material demand

Commodity demand in typical OAC areas

In this section results obtained from LARA for average household material demand of selected consumer commodities (Clothes Washer/Driers, Carpets, and Women's and Girls' Outer Garments) in the set of case study areas representing OAC super-groups are presented and discussed. These results illustrate the relative mass throughput of materials in the different types of areas, and provide the basis for estimating local household waste arisings in specific waste categories, as described in Sections

Conclusion

Policies aimed at moving towards a more resource-lean society are currently being developed and implemented in the UK at both national and local levels, and the Local Area Resource Analysis (LARA) model, described in this paper, has the ability to contribute to future policy-making at both these levels. At a national level, LARA enhances our understanding of what type of households is responsible for how much resource use, by relating resource use to socio-economic characteristics. This ability

Acknowledgements

This research was made possible through funding from the EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environment Waste Consortium programme (Grant Number GR/S79626/01), and ESRC Research Group on Lifestyles Values and Environment (RESOLVE) (Grant Number RES-152-25-1004). Data from the 2001 Census are provided by the Commissioned Output Census Service of the Office for National Statistics (Crown Copyright 2005).

Glossary of abbreviations

COICOP: Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose
CPI: Consumer Price Index
HoC: Household Characteristics Classification
HRP: Household Representative Person (head of household)
LARA: Local Area Resource Analysis model
OA: Census 2001Output Area
OAC: UK National Output Area Classification

Angela Druckman is research fellow at the Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey. Angela is also a member of the ESRC Research Group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment (RESOLVE).

References (49)

C. Sanne
Willing consumers – or locked-in? Policies for a sustainable consumption
Ecological Economics
(2002)
S. Spatari et al.
Twentieth century copper stocks and flows in North America: a dynamic analysis
Ecological Economics
(2005)
T. Jackson
Material concerns. Pollution, profit and quality of life
(1996)
E.G. Hertwich
Consumption and industrial ecology
Journal of Industrial Ecology
(2005)
A. Tukker et al.
Environmental impact of products (EIPRO): analysis of the life cycle environmental impacts related to the total final consumption of the EU25
(2005)
S. Bringezu et al.
Material flow analysis
W. Powrie et al.
Sustainable waste management – what is it and how do we get there?
Waste and Resources Management
(2007)
Hampshire County Council. “Commitment to Change”. Project Integra business plan 2005–2010;...
T. Jackson
Challenges for sustainable consumption policy
DTI
Energy white paper: our energy future – creating a low carbon economy
(2003)

UNEP

Life cycle assessment

SETAC-Europe. Second working group on LCIA. Best available practice regarding impact categories and category indicators...

US EPA

Life cycle assessment framework

E. Matthews et al.

The weight of nations: material outflows from industrial economies

(2000)

J. Todd et al.

Streamlined life-cycle assessment: a final report from SETAC North America streamlined LCA workgroup

(1999)

P. Bartelmus

Dematerialization and capital maintenance: two sides of the sustainability coin

(2002)

Druckman A, Sinclair P, Jackson T. Household resource usage and its drivers: a highly socio-economically disaggregated...

Eurostat

Economy-wide material flow accounts and derived indicators. A methodological guide

(2001)

J. Rosenblum et al.

Environmental implications of service industries

Environmental Science and Technology

(2000)

R.E. Miller et al.

Input–output analysis: foundations and extensions

(1985)

W. Leontief

Input–output economics

(1986)

J.L.R. Proops et al.

Reducing CO₂ emissions. A comparative input–output study for Germany and the UK

(1993)

Druckman A, Sinclair P, Jackson T. The local area resource analysis (LARA) model: concepts, methodology and...

Office for National Statistics Geography Policy

Cited by (28)

Heterogeneity of UK residential heat demand and its impact on the value case for heat pumps
2020, Energy Policy
This study examines the heterogeneity of UK residential heat demand and how this diversity, along with social demographic and dwelling characteristic diversity, impacts the value case for heat pumps (HPs). The marginal abatement cost (MAC) of HPs is highly sensitive to the level of heat demand and technology assumptions. Care must be taken when interpreting the results from models with a high degree of aggregation. For similar dwellings, heat demand typically becomes lower for demographic groups that have higher levels of deprivation. For similar dwellings and demographics, households using natural gas typically have double the end-use heat demands of households with electric storage heaters. Therefore, if access to heating with similar costs to that of natural gas-fired heating is gained, the direct rebound effect suggests that the heat demands of households heated with electric storage heaters could double, particularly for households that have relatively high proportions of energy expenditure. Heating technology and building efficiency support mechanisms need to simultaneously address the wider goal of decarbonisation while reducing fuel poverty, and to incorporate measures of demand diversity into future assessment of heat policy that recognises how this rebound may oppose decarbonisation efforts but enable improvements in comfort, welfare and health standards.
Environmentally extended input-output analysis on a city scale - Application to Aveiro (Portugal)
2014, Journal of Cleaner Production
Citation Excerpt :
The environmental assessment of a city or other territory is complex and currently there is no consensual and widely adopted method (Loiseau et al., 2012). A number of holistic methods and tools have been used for this purpose, such as the ecological footprint (Collins et al., 2006; Global Footprint Network, 2013), material flow analysis and accounting (Barles, 2009; Browne et al., 2011; Druckman et al., 2008; Niza et al., 2009), substance flow analysis (Timmermans and Van Holderbeke, 2004; Wu et al., 2012), emergy analysis (Campbell et al., 2004; Pulselli et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2009), exergy analysis (Sciubba et al., 2008), environmentally extended input–output (IO) analysis (Larsen and Hertwich, 2010; Lenzen and Peters, 2009), physical IO tables (Liang and Zhang, 2011), ecological network analysis (Zhang et al., 2010), and hybrid IO Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) (Heinonen et al., 2011; Heinonen and Junnila, 2011). IO analysis is a macroeconomic technique that uses data on inter-industrial monetary transactions to account for the complex interdependencies of industries in modern economies (Lenzen et al., 2004a).
This study evaluates direct and indirect environmental impacts associated with the consumption of goods and services by the households living in the municipality of Aveiro (Portugal) using environmentally extended input output (IO) analysis. The environmental impacts addressed are greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fossil fuel consumption. A methodology adapted to the specificities of the data available is proposed. This methodology relies on the Portuguese economic IO table, on GHG emission and fossil fuel consumption intensities, and on national household expenditure data downscaled to the urban level. This methodology could also be applied to other municipalities or cities for which data on local household expenditures are missing. This study also identifies the sectors with the largest impacts in order to prioritise strategies for reducing the impacts to move the municipality towards more sustainable consumption.
The estimated total GHG emissions in 2005 amounted to 26 kg CO₂-eq./cap/day and the total fossil fuel consumption was 7.3 koe/cap/day. The sectors that contributed most for both indicators are “land transport and transport by pipelines”, “food, beverages and tobacco”, “construction” and “production, collection and distribution of electricity”. Therefore, improvement measures are proposed for these sectors in order to more effectively decrease the environmental impacts related with GHG emissions and fossil energy consumption of the municipality.
A novel mixed method smart metering approach to reconciling differences between perceived and actual residential end use water consumption
2013, Journal of Cleaner Production
Studies have shown that householders’ perceptions of their water use are often not well matched with their actual water use. There has been less research however, investigating whether this bias is related to specific categories of end use and/or specific types of socio-demographic and socio-psychological household profiles. A high resolution smart metering study producing a detailed end use event registry as well as psycho-social and socio-demographic surveys, stock inventory audits and self-reported water diaries was completed for 252 households located in South-east Queensland, Australia. The study examined the contributions of end uses to total water use for each group that self-identified as “low”, “medium” or “high” water users. A series of univariate tests (i.e. analysis of variance) were conducted to examine a range of variables that characterise each self-identified water usage group including age, income, percentage of water efficient stock (e.g. low-flow taps), family size and composition and water conservation intentions and attitudes. The level of information consumers receive on their water bill as well as the diurnal end use patterns were also examined. The paper concludes with a discussion of the general characteristics (i.e. income, age, gender and family composition) of groups that tended to overestimate or underestimate their water use and how this knowledge can be used to inform demand management policy such as targeted community education programmes and community-based social marketing. Further, the potential for positive economic and sustainable development outcomes from this research is also discussed.
The development of commercial local area resource and emissions modelling-navigating towards new perspectives and applications
2013, Journal of Cleaner Production
Meeting near future UK greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets will require all parts of the UK economy to contribute, and in particular significant changes in business practices are required at the local level. From review it was found that there is a lack of detailed business accounting and reporting of GHG emissions at the local level, especially concerning supply chain impacts and small and medium sized enterprises. This paper presents a framework model to generate detailed benchmark estimates of GHGs (both on site and supply chain related) for individual businesses and all businesses of a sector within an area. The model makes use of available economic and environmental data, and, with similar datasets existing in other parts of the world, such models may be used elsewhere. The framework model is applied to an empirical case study. Estimates from such a framework can be used in a step-by-step approach to move businesses and local areas towards improved accounting, reporting and sustainability (including procurement). The model makes use of two different accounting perspectives: the production perspective (on site GHGs) and the provision perspective (supply chain GHGs attributable to purchased inputs of a business or sectors production). The new provision perspective and its consequences are explored and explained.
Examining the use of a geodemographic classification in an exploratory analysis of variations in fire incidence in South Wales, UK
2013, Fire Safety Journal
Citation Excerpt :
The analysis presented here is largely based on these super-groups although we have also explored the use of the second tier in the clustering process—so called group level classifications (this consists of 21 clusters at the national level). The Output Area Classification has been used in a number of policy application areas such as accessibility to public transport opportunities [50] and household consumption modelling [51]. There have also been attempts to tailor the OAC to particular local circumstances such as the targeting of public health campaigns in London [25] and to build on the OAC methodology to create a bespoke educational geodemographic system [12].
Geodemographic classifications are increasingly being used to examine spatial patterns in for example crime incidence, higher education opportunities and inequalities in health outcomes. At the same time fire and rescue services are increasingly employing geodemographic classifications in range of operational and strategic tasks. Geodemographic classifications have been used in a number of applications to characterise areas based on their social circumstances and are multi-dimensional by design; in contrast census derived measures tend to be uni-dimensional, measuring social or material deprivation on a scale of high to low albeit derived as a composite of contributing factors. This study uses a database of fire incidents to examine the extent to which applying such classifications enables a discrimination of such areas when compared to the use of more commonly used deprivation measures. Specifically trends in fire incidence are compared with both census-derived data and small area geodemographic classifications in order to assess the value of such classifications as exploratory tools in investigating potential associations with socio-economic patterns. These findings are couched in terms of wider debates regarding the use of neighbourhood classifications in adequately capturing what are often complex patterns in fire incident patterns in relation to such factors as community cohesion and social capital. This in turn highlights the need for more research to explore how geodemographic classifications can be used to provide a contextual basis for detailed analysis of local patterns of fire incidents.
Procedures and criteria to develop and evaluate household sustainable consumption indicators
2012, Journal of Cleaner Production
Citation Excerpt :
The projected economic growth of 2.4% per year in the EU-25 between 2000 and 2030 will be accompanied by similar growth in consumption (EEA, 2005). Evolving material intensive consumption patterns and lifestyles present a major challenge to sustainability (Druckman et al., 2008). It has become increasingly clear that sustainable economies must be built upon concepts and approaches of Sustainable Consumption (SC) (Clark, 2007; UNEP, 2011).
Communication about very complex problems like household sustainable consumption in simple terms is still a major challenge. Despite the diversity of tools to measure household consumption, clearer indicators are needed to more effectively communicate with the general public. The main objective of this research was to develop an approach to define the main procedures and criteria to built household sustainable consumption assessment tools based on indicator sets. A review of available household sustainable consumption assessment metrics and related initiatives was conducted; this included a comparative analysis of the different approaches. The review revealed that the majority of these initiatives are focused upon specific domains (e.g. energy or waste), but none used an integrated approach in the sustainable consumption domains. Furthermore, it was found that few methods used indicators to measure and assess household sustainable consumption. Principal components and a checklist of key good-practice factors that a household sustainable consumption indicator system should include were developed. Due to the need to communicate effectively, to engage stakeholders and to address the complexity involved in the measurement and assessment of household sustainable consumption, the proposed integrated approach was designed to evaluate household sustainable consumption.

View all citing articles on Scopus

Philip Sinclair is research fellow at the Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey.

Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at the Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey and Director of RESOLVE. He is also the Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission and sits on the Environment Agency Science Advisory Panel.

View full text

A geographically and socio-economically disaggregated local household consumption model for the UK

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Methodological approach

Commodity demand in typical OAC areas

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Glossary of abbreviations

Ecological Economics

Ecological Economics

Material concerns. Pollution, profit and quality of life

Consumption and industrial ecology

Journal of Industrial Ecology

Environmental impact of products (EIPRO): analysis of the life cycle environmental impacts related to the total final consumption of the EU25

Material flow analysis

Sustainable waste management – what is it and how do we get there?

Waste and Resources Management

Challenges for sustainable consumption policy

Energy white paper: our energy future – creating a low carbon economy