On the way to a post-carbon society: Assessing the personal carbon footprint of French social milieux to develop targeted intervention strategies

摘要

Achieving a massive reduction of CO_2 emissions dependsnot only on technical energy efficiency, but also strongly onchanging patterns of consumption. Policy makers and scienceoften fail to consider the great variety of modern societies, addressinga standardized uniform being called “the consumer”.In this paper we take the strong segmentation of the Frenchsociety into account, applying the Sinus Milieus~? approachdeveloped by the marketing company Sociovision. These (currently9) quantifiable social milieus are defined along social values,aspirations, lifestyles and socio-economic conditions. Wewill analyze the carbon footprint of those Milieus, identify theconsumption areas with the highest footprint and subsequentlysuggest appropriate “intervention strategies” for each Milieu.Each Milieu is represented by one or two typical profiles,created on prominent characteristics such as the type of housing,frequency of long distance travels, or food preferences. Thepersonal carbon footprint related to each profile is calculatedwith the Bilan Carbone Personnel~? tool which was developedby the French energy agency ADEME. It is subdivided into4 main categories which account for different kinds of parameters:(1) domestic consumption (2) transportation (3) foodand (4) goods and services. First results show that the personalcarbon footprint varies greatly from one Milieu to another andfrom one field of consumption to another, particularly regardingtransportation.Given those strong differences between Milieus and consumptionareas we will subsequently suggest low-carbon “interventionstrategies” that are targeted to the specific characteristicsof different Milieus. Typically, such measures can becommunication (e.g. campaigns), regulation (personal carbonallowances), financial incentives (e.g. feed-in tariffs), the promotionof collective action (e.g. community initiatives) andchanges of “choice infrastructures” (e.g. attractive public transportation).