Swedish municipalities address climate impact with SEI’s Consumption Compass

In the face of escalating emissions and climate challenges, it is imperative for Sweden and the EU to acknowledge emissions generated by our consumption patterns. Notably, a significant portion of these emissions, which arise from our consumption activities, falls outside the scope of Sweden’s climate policy.

Our consumption patterns lead to emissions in other countries. By making these emissions visible, we can implement targeted mitigation measures. According to the Swedish EPA, Sweden’s per capita consumption-based emissions were 8,5 tons per year in 2021.

The Paris Agreement goal is to keep the global average temperature increase well below two degrees and strive towards keeping the temperature increase below 1.5 degrees. This goal is often interpreted as that emissions must be reduced to approximately one ton per person by the year 2050, read more on the Swedish EPA’s website. The IPCC summarizes expected climate effects in its Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 °C – Summary for Policymakers.

A tool for mapping emissions from consumption

The Consumption Compass is a groundbreaking tool that analyses and visualizes consumption-based emissions Swedish households across municipalities and postcode areas. This tool has provided, for the first time, an opportunity for Swedish municipalities and authorities to understand household consumption patterns’ similarities and differences. Consequently, it enables the design tailored policy measures to reduce consumption-based emissions.

Launched in April 2022, the first version of the Consumption Compass was presented based on 2019 data. With new funding from the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Formas), SEI is enhancing the tool with features like web integration, multi-year data, new geographical divisions, interactive maps and future scenario modelling.

SEI’s Consumption Compass has garnered positive attention from municipalities, county councils and Swedish media, leading to various features in Swedish news outlets including Swedish Television, Swedish Radio and daily newspapers. Additionally, Aktuell Hållbarhet, Sweden’s largest sustainability news outlet, used it in their yearly municipal ranking.

A higher income leads to higher consumption and emissions

Analysis from the Consumption Compass shows that Swedes’ car travel, food and air travel are among the consumption categories that contribute the greatest climate impact, followed by categories such as furniture and home maintenance as well as sports and leisure activities. High-income municipalities generally have higher consumption-based emissions. Interestingly, car travel emissions are higher in rural areas, while air travel emissions are higher in metropolitan areas, regardless of income levels.

There is a significant variation in emissions between households in different municipalities in Sweden, ranging from approximately 5.5 and 8.2 tonnes of CO2 equivalents per person, excluding public consumption. Even within each municipality, the differences are more pronounced, varying between 3.5 and 17.8 tonnes CO2 equivalents on average per postcode area. One of the tool’s most important contributions has been to illustrate the differences in climate impact from household consumption patterns per zip code level.

The tool analyses 110 different consumption categories

Currently, the Consumption Compass database covers over 110 consumption categories and aims to support municipalities in identifying effective control instruments and measures to reduce emissions generated within various consumption categories.

SEI is now working to enhance the Consumption Compass by publishing updated data within a multi-year time series and incorporating a scenario function. The aim is to improve the tool’s accessibility and utility by integrating it onto a web platform, which is anticipated to help a broader range of user groups discover and utilize the tool for taking measures to reduce emissions. A review of data sources is also being conducted as part of the project’s progress. The new version is expected to launch at the end of 2024.

“In the next version of the Consumption Compass, we want to increase the user-friendliness and develop the graphics and visualization of the emissions, with which we will hopefully also reach new target groups. The connection between socio-demographic groups and their emissions will also be analysed, but this will be carried out within the framework of our research and will not be integrated into the tool itself,” concludes Katarina Axelsson.

Engagement with Swedish municipalities ensure quality

The tool has been actively used by Swedish municipalities and organizations in their strategic and communication efforts to prioritize emission reduction measures. A survey sent to nearly 40 municipalities, county administrative boards and other users of the tool, aims to gather feedback for future enhancements.

The feedback illustrates the tool’s practical applications:

“We have used the tool to be able to work more locally with consumption-based emissions. We have been able to communicate more concretely within the municipality, the administration and externally to various social actors.”

“We have used the Consumption Compass as a basis to understand various aspects connected to climate justice, to understand how the population of the city consumes and included it in our climate action plan.”

“It has been very interesting to analyze overlap with other mapping such as e.g. socio-economic, we have also gained a better understanding of the emissions within the municipality.”