The climate footprint includes all relevant greenhouse gases emitted worldwide that are associated with the production of biogenic goods consumed in Germany or exported from here. In addition to carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (e.g. from animal husbandry) and nitrous oxide emissions (e.g. from rice cultivation) are taken into account. The different greenhouse gases are converted into CO2 equivalents. Land-use-related climate impacts from deforestation or afforestation, for example, have not yet been taken into account in the climate footprint.
The greenhouse effect is a global phenomenon, so a global analysis is necessary for comprehensive monitoring. The climate footprint therefore also includes greenhouse gas emissions generated by the German bioeconomy abroad. The climate footprint is closely linked to the material footprint as well as the agricultural footprint (see material footprint and agricultural footprint).
The calculation of the climate footprint is essentially based on the application of a global multi-regional input/output database (EXIOBASE):
- In a first step, an input approach is used to determine how much (differentiated by 200 product groups, of which 15 are agricultural products) and where (differentiated by 49 countries/regions worldwide) is produced for final demand in Germany. Here, not only goods and services that are directly incorporated into the products in demand are taken into account, but all production stages of the global supply chains.
- In a second step, this information on monetary production is converted into physical units of the resulting GHG emissions. The conversion factors used for this (kg GHG emissions per € production value) are also reported in the EXIOBASE database.