Publication Date
1-1-2024
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy
Volume
20
Issue
1
DOI
10.1080/15487733.2024.2390232
Abstract
Carbon-footprint calculators are widely used as communication and education tools, designed to make people aware of the ways their personal actions contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions. However, they have come under criticism for emphasizing individual behavior versus structural change. We extend this critique to argue that carbon-footprint calculators are a form of “metric governance” that not only disciplines users but also constrains their abilities to engage with the complexities of climate change and social action. We focus on a particularly wicked problem of carbon-metric governance: livestock greenhouse-gas emissions. We show that carbon-footprint calculators black box and fix the complex politics and uncertainties around livestock-emissions metrics, thereby inhibiting users’ abilities to engage as deliberative subjects in the “wicked problem” of climate governance.
Keywords
Carbon footprint, carbon-footprint calculator, metrics, reflexive governance, sustainability
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Department
Environmental Studies
Recommended Citation
E. Melanie DuPuis and Dustin Mulvaney. "Opening the black box: carbon-footprint calculators, meat consumption, and the “wicked problem” of metric governance" Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy (2024). https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2024.2390232
