Chinese household environmental footprint and its response to environmental awareness

Sustainable consumption has become an important issue when the world has limited resources and deteriorating environment. Given the context, this study first examines the influence of income disparities on different environmental footprints of Chinese households. We combine the input-output model with Chinese household survey data from the China family panel studies. The results show that, on an average, the carbon dioxide (CO₂), pollutants, water and energy footprints of richest families are about 4.5-5.9 times larger than that of poorest households. Furthermore, the richest families even have 9.2-11.5 times larger metal and non-metal footprints. The consumption structure change can act as a driving factor to offset the increase in CO₂, pollutants, water and energy footprints brought about by income rise, since it has reduced the household footprints per unit expenditure. However, the consumption structure change may increase the metal and non-metal footprints per unit expenditure simultaneously, making the metal and non-metal footprints increase faster than the other footprints as income increases. Since environment awareness is expected as a factor to further restrain household environment footprints on the demand side, we also examine how one important component of environmental awareness-perceived seriousness of environmental problems-influences household footprints based on the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model. While emphasizing seriousness of environmental issues can cause a slight decline in the metal and non-metal footprints, it surprisingly increases the CO₂, energy, and pollutants footprints; it does not influence the water footprint. In addition, perception of the seriousness of environmental problems impacts the environmental behaviors of wealthy families more than poor families. These findings demonstrate the need to formulate policies to overcome the demand-side challenge of achieving sustainability.