Kilian, Lena and Owen, Anne and Newing, Andy and Ivanova, Diana
(2021).
Per Capita Consumption-Based Greenhouse Gas Emissions for UK Lower and Middle Layer Super Output Areas, 2016.
[Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex:
UK Data Service.
10.5255/UKDA-SN-854888
In light of an increased involvement of local actors in climate change mitigation, understanding local greenhouse gas emission trends is vital. Particularly in countries and cities with high consumption-based footprints, recognising how local consumption contributes to global and national emissions is key for effective emission reduction. Typically, national emissions are disaggregated using consumption and expenditure microdata. To assess the reliability of such an approach, this research generates emission estimates using three UK microdata datasets from the year 2016 and compares their emission outputs, when levels of spatial and product details are high. These datasets include the Output Area Classification (a publicly available geodemographic classification), the Living Costs and Food Survey (an openly available expenditure survey), and a commercial household expenditure dataset by TransUnion. Per capita greenhouse has emissions are estimated for UK Lower and Middle Super Output Areas using all three datasets, in order to assess the impact microdata selection can have on emission estimates.
Data description (abstract)
National consumption-based emissions of households are typically disaggregated using consumption and expenditure microdata. This data collection contains neighbourhood- and product-level per capita household emissions for the year 2016 estimated using an input-output methodology and three such consumption and expenditure datasets for subnational disaggregation. These datasets include the Output Area Classification (a publicly available geodemographic classification), the Living Costs and Food Survey (an openly available expenditure survey), and a commercial household expenditure dataset by TransUnion. Data are available for Lower and Middle Layer Super Output Areas in England and Wales, to Data Zones and Intermediate Geographies in Scotland and to Super Output Areas and Wards in Northern Ireland. Product-level data are available at Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) 2 and 3 levels.
Data creators: |
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Sponsors: |
Economic and Social Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
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Grant reference: |
ES/S50161X/1
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Topic classification: |
Economics Society and culture
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Keywords: |
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, CARBON FOOTPRINT, CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS, CONSUMPTION
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Project title: |
Estimating household greenhouse gas emissions of UK neighbourhoods
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Project dates: |
From | To |
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1 October 2018 | 30 September 2022 |
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Date published: |
17 Jun 2021 11:00
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Last modified: |
17 Jun 2021 11:00
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Temporal coverage: |
From | To |
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1 January 2016 | 31 December 2016 |
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Country: |
United Kingdom |
Spatial unit: |
Other Census Geography > Scottish Data Zones Census Geography > Super Output Areas (Lower Layer) Census Geography > Super Output Areas (Middle Layer) Census Geography > Super Output Areas (Northern Ireland) |
Data collection method: |
To generate these data geographic data, census data, expenditure data, and input-output data are used.
The expenditure datasets used to disaggregate national emission estimates are the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCFS) (ONS and Defra, 2020), Output Area Classification (OAC) Group Level (Gale et al., 2016), and a rarely used commercial consumer expenditure dataset by TransUnion from the year 2016.
To calculate the GHG emissions associated with the consumption-patterns of UK neighbourhoods we need a set of product-based conversion factors that can be used to convert household activity into emissions. Conversion factors consider both the direct emissions associated with burning fuel to heat homes and drive cars and the indirect emissions associated with the full production supply-chain of the goods and services bought by the household. This includes both emissions from domestic production and those emissions released abroad which are used in the production of imports.
The UK’s MRIO (UKMRIO) is used to calculate the conversion factors: GHG per unit spend (£) by COICOP product (ONS, 2019; United Nations: Statistics Division, 2019; Defra, 2020; ONS, 2020). The UKMRIO is a national statistic constructed annually by the University of Leeds following methodology outlined by Tukker et al. (2018) and Edens et al. (2015). Greenhouse gases reported in the UKMRIO are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), these are converted into their carbon equivalent and are reported as tCO2e. A more detailed description of the UKMRIO can be found in Owen and Barrett (2020). |
Observation unit: |
Geographic unit |
Kind of data: |
Numeric |
Type of data: |
UK survey data |
Resource language: |
English |
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Data sourcing, processing and preparation: |
1 Data Pre-processing
Number of rooms is used as a physical proxy for both the LCFS and OAC, the two datasets containing this measure. In addition, the LCFS allows for the adjustment of expenditure data on flights through physical units, as information on the number of domestic and international flights taken is provided. Moreover, gas and electricity expenditures from the OAC and LCFS are adjusted by payment type, as households paying by direct debit or monthly instalments pay approximately 80 GBP less per year for gas and electricity (OFGEM, 2014).
2 LCFS aggregation from surveys to neighbourhoods
Spatially, the LCFS includes information on regions and OAC. To disaggregate beyond regional level, we group surveys by OAC and regional information. This aggregation is shown in Figure 1. Of the 5,041 surveys, 246 could not be grouped, 9 due to missing OAC values and 237 because no group with more than 10 observations could be made below national level. For a visualisation of this process please see the attached documentation.
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Rights owners: |
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Contact: |
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Notes on access: |
The Data Collection is available to any user without the requirement for registration for download/access.
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Publisher: |
UK Data Service
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Last modified: |
17 Jun 2021 11:00
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