Another Reason to Dislike Huge Suburban Homes: They're Warming the Planet

A new research study out of Switzerland quantifies the disproportionate contribution to greenhouse gas emissions made by large homes and relatively long commutes. In one Swiss town, twenty-one percent of households create 50 percent of the emissions.

1 minute read

June 28, 2013, 9:00 AM PDT

By Jonathan Nettler @nettsj

"You probably don't need a sophisticated climate model to tell you that a compact, car-free apartment in the city has a smaller carbon footprint than a 3,000 square-foot single-family house in the suburbs," writes Emily Badger. "But add all of those big, far-flung homes together, and their cumulative impact starts to look really disproportionate. In many metropolitan areas, this means that a narrow slice of households are responsible for a vastly larger share of the region's greenhouse gas emissions."

"Just how much larger are we talking? An interesting new study out of Switzerland, published in the American Chemical Society's journal Environmental Science & Technology, looked at this question in a single town there." By examining 3,238 households in the town of Wattwil, researchers calculated that twenty-one percent of the households produced 50 percent of the area's housing and mobility-related emissions, says Badger.

"The main culprits? Large homes requiring a lot of energy to heat and cool, and relatively long commutes."

FULL STORY: A Small Number of People Are Causing a Huge Share of Our Greenhouse Emissions

Thursday, June 27, 2013 in The Atlantic Cities

Energy Environment Europe Switzerland Greenhouse Gas Emissions Long Commutes Large Homes View More

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