Sustainability insights and reflections from a personal carbon footprint study: The need for quantitative and qualitative change

This study evaluated the personal carbon footprints of two lecturers who have western life-styles living in the global north and would also consider themselves as being environmentally and sustainability conscious individuals. Not surprisingly, both had relatively high carbon footprints that were similar to the average in their country of residence at double the global average. A major reflection from the study is that it is difficult for (even environmentally conscious) individuals to drastically reduce their carbon footprints when they live and participate in a society that has a high carbon footprint. Change in complex adaptive holarchic systems is recursive and thus there is a need for concomitant societal change in order to facilitate further the individuals' capacity to achieve the radical reductions in their carbon footprints required to realise a sustainable society operating within biophysical limits.