SCP


Cross-cut Chapter 3 GLOBAL GENDER AND ENVIRONMENT OUTLOOK Food Fish


Box 2.4.1: Components of household ecological footprints – examples from Canada and the United Arab Emirates (% of total household demand, 2010)


Chapter 4: Water Forest Ontario, Canada Energy


food 28


United Arab Emirates 23 Chapter 2


mobility 16 21


goods 18 19


housing 14 17


Source:EWS-WWF (2010); Global Footprint Network (2010)


Box 2.4.2: Shares of total marketed world energy use by end-sector users, 2011


Industrial


Transportation Residential Commercial


51% 20% 18% 12%


Source: United States Energy Information Administration (2015).


Within households, food is typically the highest demand sector. Situating the footprint of food consumption in the end-using household sector ignores the reality that this footprint actually comprises all emissions resulting from the production, transportation and storage of the food that is eventually consumed in the household. For example, in the United States the production of food (including planting, growing and harvesting crops and feeding and rearing livestock) accounts for 83% of the carbon footprint of household-based food consumption and its transportation accounts for 11% (Center for Sustainable Systems 2015).


As countries, households and individuals become wealthier, they consume more. However, generalizations about “richer” and “poorer” countries or regions do not necessarily provide adequate explanations of excess consumption and material use patterns at smaller scales. In the richer countries overall, the consumption and environmental costs gap at individual or household levels is enormous. A 2013 study in Switzerland, for example, showed that only 21% of the households in one mid-sized community were responsible for 50% of total greenhouse gas emissions; if their emissions were halved, the community’s total emissions would therefore be reduced by 25% (Saner 2013).


106


Understanding the intra-household gender dynamics of consumption requires even more nuanced analysis. For developed countries the prevailing assumption is that, following traditional gender roles, women do most of the shopping for households. But there is little evidence to support the widespread corollary assumption that


Chapter 1


being the “principal shopper” in the household also means that women make the majority of decisions about household purchases. Taking on a shopping role does not necessarily mean that women have greater agency and autonomy in decision-making about consumption. Gender analysts caution that “Evidence that women played a role in making decisions which were of little consequence or which were assigned to women anyway by the pre- existing gender division of roles and responsibilities, tell us far less about their power to choose than evidence on decisions which relate to strategic life choices or to choices which had been denied to them in the past” (Kabeer 1999).


Assumptions about women’s control of household- based consumption choices often prove to be wrong when micro-scale analysis is available. For example, in the 1990s kerosene (parrafin) continued to be the principal fuel used for cooking in many poor townships in South Africa despite its dangers (e.g. flammability, toxicity) and despite the wide availability of safer gas and electricity. An analysis in one township revealed that the choice to continue using kerosene was embedded in a wide range of cultural, social and economic aspects of gender relations and the local economy. Buying, selling and using kerosene were considered women’s work, while men were more involved in providing and paying for electricity and gas. Men therefore resisted a shift away from kerosene since it increased their obligation with respect to family budgets, while many women preferred kerosene because they could obtain it informally by borrowing from friends when cash was short (Bank 1997).


These caveats aside, the evidence that women play important roles, across cultures, as major household consumers and sometimes decision-makers suggests that women can play a significant role in shifting towards sustainable consumption. Women’s ownership of assets, control of income, and degree of authority in household financial decision-making also results in distinctive expenditure patterns: in households with


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180  |  Page 181  |  Page 182  |  Page 183  |  Page 184  |  Page 185  |  Page 186  |  Page 187  |  Page 188  |  Page 189  |  Page 190  |  Page 191  |  Page 192  |  Page 193  |  Page 194  |  Page 195  |  Page 196  |  Page 197  |  Page 198  |  Page 199  |  Page 200  |  Page 201  |  Page 202  |  Page 203  |  Page 204  |  Page 205  |  Page 206  |  Page 207  |  Page 208  |  Page 209  |  Page 210  |  Page 211  |  Page 212  |  Page 213  |  Page 214  |  Page 215  |  Page 216  |  Page 217  |  Page 218  |  Page 219  |  Page 220  |  Page 221  |  Page 222  |  Page 223  |  Page 224  |  Page 225  |  Page 226  |  Page 227  |  Page 228  |  Page 229  |  Page 230  |  Page 231  |  Page 232  |  Page 233  |  Page 234  |  Page 235  |  Page 236  |  Page 237  |  Page 238  |  Page 239  |  Page 240  |  Page 241  |  Page 242