Green Challenge AcceptedA Master Thesis Infographic

A Master Thesis Infographic

‘Barbie BCause’ proves that sustainability is truly everywhere,

but

Are Sustainability Concepts Useful

(Knowledge)?

Let’s have a look at a famous sustainability concept:

Have you met the Footprint Family?

You haven’t?

Well, it consists of the the Ecological Footprint, the Water Footprint

and the Carbon Footprint, demonstrated here:

embedded from ‘CarbonVisuals’

Obviously a great communication tool!

Or is it?

I tried to find out….

‘It is time to be clearer about the Footprint and recognize it as a powerful tool for communicating

over-consumption of humanity whilst being aware of its limitations in other areas.’

(Wiedmann & Barrett 2010, p.8)

…and mapped Footprint Indicators in New Media over 1 year in

… to analyse whether the Footprint Family can be seen as a form of Useful Knowledge.

Here are some snapshots of what I found:

The Footprint Family is…

…(i) socially legitimate

as it is widely accepted

Variation of mentions over time by volume; x-axis: time of observation period, y-axis: volume of mentions or reactions

Gender distribution [%male users] of mentions by volume

Comparison of density by volume of the Footprint Family between working hours and leisure time

Interactive World map of mentions by volume by country of the Footprint Family

…faces a mainly positive attitude

Sentiment of posts and reactions by volume as percentage and totals for the footprint indicators

…which is mixed for the Carbon Footprint, however

Word cloud of top Carbon Footprint keywords by sentiment; 125 positive (green gradient), 152 negative (red gradient); size: volume

…is deliberative,

showing many ‘gatewatchers’…

Forceatlas 2 layouted Carbon Footprint network with influencers; color: modularity class; bubble size: visibility

…and some ‘gatekeepers’ like Gates

Forceatlas 2 layouted Carbon Footprint network with influencers; color: country; bubble size: number of reactions

…it is communicated close to its intended (ii) context

of visualizing overconsumption and offering solutions

…and is thus (iii) usable

Wordcloud of volume of Carbon Footprint keywords by channel, size: volume; color: channel micro blogs (light blue), social media (dark blue), forums (orange), news (yellow), blogs (green)

Wordcloud of volume of Carbon Footprint keywords by channel, size: volume; color: micro blogs (light blue), social media (blue), forums (orange), news (yellow), blogs (green)

…finally, it is (iv) practically relevant,

e.g. connecting the Carbon Footprint with ‘reduction’ and similar buzzwords

Semantic connections between the Carbon Footprint keywords; size of connecting lines: volume of connected keywords

In a nutshell, the Footprint Family proves to be useful knowledge

and can indeed be recognized

‘as a powerful tool for communicating over-consumption of humanity’

– with yet some room for improvement

More details?

To be published soon

or check out the Pulsar Blog Post