Estimating consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions at the city scale

The document explains that consumption-based emissions inventories (CBEIs) capture the full carbon footprint of a city by including emissions from goods and services produced outside city borders. It identifies that for wealthy, industrialized cities, CBEIs are often significantly higher than territorial inventories. The guide details three main estimation approaches: spending data with input-output models, physical data with life-cycle analysis, and hybrid methods. It advises city planners to align their choice of methodology with their specific goals, such as resident education, peer comparison, or local policy design, while emphasizing the importance of detailed categorization to identify high-leverage areas for emissions reduction.

• Consumption-based emissions inventories (CBEIs) typically reveal a larger carbon footprint than territorial inventories because they include emissions from the production and transport of goods occurring outside city boundaries. For cities in North America, a CBEI is typically about twice as high as territorial emissions, while a C40 Cities study of 79 global cities found CBEIs were 60% higher on average than territorial GHG inventories.
• Residents of wealthy, industrialized countries have consumption-based emissions that far exceed the global average. Specifically, emissions associated with residents in the U.S., Canada, Norway, UK, and Sweden are between two and four times higher than the global average resident consumption of 6.3 t CO2e.
• While territorial inventories highlight emissions from local transport, buildings, and power, CBEIs expand the focus to include goods, food, services, and air travel. In the U.S., these additional categories generally contribute another 2 tons of CO2e per person, with meat production identified as having a larger footprint than other food types.
• There are three primary methods for estimating consumption: using spending data with input-output models (suitable for full CBEIs but often lacking local resolution), using physical data with process-based life-cycle analysis (LCA) (more accurate for specific goods but cumbersome for full inventories), or using a hybrid approach that combines both to balance comprehensiveness with local detail.
• The choice of CBEI methodology should be driven by the city's objective: pre-existing or national analyses may suffice for resident education; standardized multi-regional data is best for city comparisons; and locally sourced physical data or hybrid models are necessary for designing and evaluating specific local policies.

APA

Broekhoff, D., Erickson, P., & Piggot, G. (2019). Estimating consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions at the city scale. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/estimating-consumption-based-greenhouse-gas-emissions.pdf

Chicago

Broekhoff, Derik, Peter Erickson, and Georgia Piggot. Estimating consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions at the city scale. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2019. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/estimating-consumption-based-greenhouse-gas-emissions.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Broekhoff |first1=Derik |last2=Erickson |first2=Peter |last3=Piggot |first3=Georgia |title=Estimating consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions at the city scale |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=February 2019 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/estimating-consumption-based-greenhouse-gas-emissions.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{broekhoff2019estimating, author = {Broekhoff, Derik and Erickson, Peter and Piggot, Georgia}, title = {{Estimating consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions at the city scale}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2019}, month = feb, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/estimating-consumption-based-greenhouse-gas-emissions.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }