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
Interactive World map of mentions by volume by country of the Footprint Family
…faces a mainly positive attitude
…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: 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