Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan
Online ISSN : 1881-0519
Print ISSN : 1880-2761
ISSN-L : 1880-2761
Analysis of Environmental Load related to Household Consumption Considering Climate Change and Household Characteristics
Naoki YOSHIKAWAKoji AMANOKoji SHIMADA
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2009 Volume 5 Issue 2 Pages 252-261

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Abstract

Objective. It is important to estimate future environmental load from household sector because CO2 emission from household sector in Japan is increasing, and reduction of waste generation is also urgently required. Besides, the environmental load would be influenced by some driving forces: changes in population composition, increase of solitary household, climate change, economic growth, progress of environmental technology, changing lifestyle etc. In this study, we analyzed environmental load (CO2, final disposal) induced from household consumption considering household characteristics, temperature rise and income, and estimated future environmental load in future scenarios of those.
Results and Discussion. 4.6-28.4% increase in CO2 emission and 8.9-40.8% increase in final disposal between 2000 and 2030 could be estimated in 24 scenarios those are combinations of 4 economic scenarios based on scenarios in the IPCC SRES and 6 population and household scenarios. Difference of CO2 emission estimation by population and household variations is about 9% in maximum. Changes of CO2 emission between 2000 and 2030 caused by socio-economic situation changes indicate -12.8% by population decline, +7.6% by household characteristics changes, and +25.9% by economic growth in the middle scenario. Temperature rise effect on CO2 emission is negative, although it is not very significant.
Conclusions. We estimated that future environmental loads induced by household consumption in Japan should increase and a certain amount of negative effect by population decline could be offset by household characteristics changes. The result suggests that it is important to consider not only population change but also consumption style change by demographic composition based on sustainable consumption.

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© 2009 The Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan
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