Carbon Footprint Recap

Carbon Footprint - Remote

​AQA GCSE Combined - C9: Specification

The carbon footprint is the total amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted over the full life cycle of a product, service or event.

The carbon footprint can be reduced by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and methane.
Students should be able to:

• describe actions to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and methane
• give reasons why actions may be limited.

Carbon Footprint - Remote

​How this works

This is the first of a two part remote revision lesson.

You will need to:

1) Read through these slides and use the questions to check your understanding,

2) Anything you get wrong, either write a note or look at the relevant cognito video to help boost your understanding (link to cognito),

3) Once you feel confident, complete the quiz (part 2 of assignment). The quiz is mandatory.

Any product that is made has a lifecycle (image →).

Lifecycles let us assess the true environmental impact of a product.

The next page has an example that shows us why we use them.

Lifecycles

If you only look at the energy needed to make a fork, plastic uses less energy than steel.
If you look at the whole lifecycle, though, it is clear that a metal fork is less wasteful.

Raw Materials:
Plastic is made from oil. This require less energy to produce than steel.

Getting oil from the sea bed also releases greenhouse gases trapped with the oil.

Manufacture:
A plastic fork costs less energy to manufacture (make) than a metal one.

Use:

​A plastic fork can only be used once. A steel fork is used thousands of times

Disposal:
Steel is easily recycled. The plastics used in single-use cutlery often cannot be recycled.

Lifecycles

Multiple Choice

The energy used in the lifecycle of a car would be best defined as:

• How much energy is used each time you drive it.

• How much energy is used driving it for its full useful life.

• How much energy is used to make it and for its full useful driving life

• How much is used to:

  make the metals and plastics...

  use them to make the car...

  drive the car...

  and recycle the car

The information about the forks is difficult to compare. Because of this, we use products' Carbon Footprint to make a fair but simpler comparison.

You must know this definition for Carbon Footprint:

Carbon footprint means the total amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released during a product's lifecycle.

Products also include services (e.g. catching a bus) and events (e.g. a Premier League football match)

Lifecycles - So what?

Carbon dioxide released during a lifecycle usually comes from:

Travel (fuel is burned),

Other use of energy to heat or move something (again, fuel is burnt),

Anything that damages natural environments where Carbon Dioxide would be locked-up (dead trees!)

Carbon Footprint

This means we can reduce carbon footprint by:

Avoiding travel:
e.g. use local producers.

Reducing electricity use:
e.g. by using more efficient processes,

Replacing/restoring damaged environments:
e.g. by planting new forest (this is sometimes called carbon-offsetting)

Carbon Footprint

Sadly, companies often will not improve their Carbon Footprint...


New efficient processes can be expensive to implement,

Land owners can make more profit from food crops than trees planted for offsetting,

Often, it's just really hard to change complicated processes.

​

Carbon Footprint

Multiple Select

Tick everything you would use to measure a Carbon Footprint

• Measure

  Carbon Dioxide

  produced in a product lifecycle

• Measure

  Methane

  produced in a product lifecycle

• Take away any Carbon Dioxide locked-up, for instance, by planting trees.

• Score it according to how useful a product is

Multiple Select

Why do we talk about trees in relation to Carbon Footprints?
(Pick two good answers)

• Trees usually lock Carbon Dioxide up during Photosynthesis

• More trees
  =
  more oxygen

• Planting trees allows them to soak up some of the CO₂ released when making a product

• More trees

  =

  more CO₂

Multiple Choice

Why is it really hard to measure Carbon Footprints?

Pick the one answer you think is best

• It is difficult to catch the CO₂ to measure it

• Lifecycles have to consider many materials, many steps, and uses

  - this makes an assessment complicated

• The maths is really difficult

• People get angry when you talk about CO₂ emissions

Multiple Choice

Reducing Carbon Footprints doesn't always happen because using new ___ can be difficult and is often more ___ .

Likewise, offsetting (planting ___) takes away land that could be used to plant ___.

• Expensive;

  Processes;

  Crops;

  Trees

• Expensive;

  Processes;

  Trees;

  Crops

• Processes;

  Expensive;

  Trees;

  Crops

Thanks!

​To complete this homework...

You must now finish the assessment quiz at link two.