Carbon Footprint Assessment: A Tool for Promoting Long-Term Pollution Emission Reduction and Sustainable Development?

摘要

With the growing interest in global warming, climate change, and the influence that human activities have on our environment, there are increasing opportunities for firms to assess their carbon footprint and do something to transform behaviours and invest in the environment with concrete actions. Moreover, an increasingly common market-based mechanism is the carbon market which links marketplace values with the sequestration of carbon. In this chapter we highlight some of the carbon footprint assessment uses and of the market-based mechanisms (especially voluntary ones) that are effective both for the firms and the Nature in that they allow benefits for both. One research program we are currently conducting designs a voluntary approach for firms andindividuals to calculate and reduce the carbon footprints. We have analysed some real cases that have chosen to adhere to an Italian carbon footprint assessment program that entails forestry management and sustainable development behaviours programs.