Does gender make a difference in terms of environmental burden?

If you are tired of arguing the same old issues at home you can add environment on the list next to money, sex and how to raise children. Check out the facts first to secure your back.

Helsingin Sanomat published a story in their monthly supplement about personal environmental burden in terms of carbon footprint. One of the issues raised was that men have larger footprints compared to women. Taking into account almost 30 000 answers from men and 25 000 from women on a short questionnaire it seems that among all age groups women’s average per capita carbon emissions are a couple of thousand kilograms smaller compared to men.

What about other evidence? A Swedish study about energy use showed that in a sample of Swedish people single men use more energy than single women. The difference was 20 per cent. The greatest difference was in the transport sector, men drive more than women whereas women spend more on clothing and healthcare for instance. Men have in general higher level of expenditure and this affects the result. However, energy consumption per unit of money spend was also higher in case of men compared to women.

Another study by The Environment Advisory Council of the Swedish Ministry of the Environment about ecological footprints and gender equality among the rich and the poor in global perspective and came to the conclusion that on average men’s ecological footprint is larger than women’s. However, in poor areas it is not a question of luxury consumption like cosmetics and car driving. It is about access to basic resources like energy for cooking and lightning, access to clean water and transportation services. As a result of lack of access on the basic resources the footprint is very small and the footprint of women even smaller than men’s.Imagine the debate this issue raised at home, in the office and online discussion forums! “If women spend money on clothes and cosmetics how about the usefulness of the spending if compared to cars and technical gadgets?” The next person continues:”The tech-toys are usually just for men but women spend money on things that benefit the whole family”. The following comment was quite common: “My girlfriend spends hours in hot shower and bath, she must consumes more than me!” Actually the last point might be true. According to the study by Vattenfall (1991, Energihushållning genom nya energivanor. Demonstrationsförsök i 350 småhus i Sverige) Stockholm women spend more time showering than men. Also a life cycle wide assessment of lifestyle was suggested just like in case of any product. The reason for this was that women live longer than men.

Can we actually learn anything about all this? I’d say yes. In general, men are more interested about the technical solutions but women are ready to make practical changes in their everyday life to improve sustainability. This means that we need to provide different options for making improvements in personal life. For sure we need both, technical development and behavior change.