首页|Sharing matters: Household and urban economies of scale for a carbon-neutral future
Sharing matters: Household and urban economies of scale for a carbon-neutral future
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NSTL
Elsevier
Economics of scale refer to the benefits in cost, efficiency, and sustainability yielded with increasing size. Driven by shrinking household size and urban sprawl, household or urban economies of scale have been declining in recent decades. The declining scale economies may also affect CO(2 )emissions, which, however, have not been well understood due to a mixture of other factors. Based on the Chinese urban household survey data and the metrics of urban density, hierarchical linear models at two levels of city and household are developed to investigate the effects of household and urban economies on residential CO2 emissions per capita and the interaction between these two effects. Our estimates confirm the existence of household and urban economies of scale by showing that an additional household member and a 1% increase in urban density could reduce emissions per capita by 2.8% and 0.039%, respectively, and these scale economies can be partially substitutable due to a similar sharing mechanism. Using China's historical census data and extrapolating from our estimate, we also find that over the past 40 years, China's declined household and urban economies increased emissions per capita by 5.0% and 1.1%, respectively, when controlling for other variables. Although the household and urban economies of scale may not be sufficient to offset total emissions caused by rising affluence and urbanization, the emission benefits of scale economies suggest that imitating households' sharing acts at the urban scale, such as carpooling and secondhand goods trade, will contribute to emission mitigation and broaden the climate solution space during the urbanization process.
Household sizeUrban densityCO2 emissionsHierarchical linear modelDEMAND-SIDE SOLUTIONSGHG EMISSIONSENERGY USEFOOTPRINTCHINAFORMCONSUMPTIONIMPACTSUBURBANIZATIONDENSITY
NSTL
Elsevier
