The average man in France has a 26% higher carbon footprint than the average woman largely due to increased car usage and red meat consumption, a study released on Wednesday by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST) found.
Researchers analysed French consumption data from more than 2,000 car models and food products matched with detailed environmental information to shed light on the “underexplored factor” of how gender might impact carbon emissions.
It found men in France had an annual average carbon footprint associated with food and transport of 5.3 tonnes, compared with 3.9 tonnes for women, largely due to differences in consumption of what the working paper describes as two “gender stereotypical” goods: red meat and cars.
“Women have substantially lower carbon footprints than men in the food and transport sectors,” said one of the study authors, Ondine Berland, a fellow in environmental economics at LSE. “We identify household structure, biological differences, higher red meat consumption and car usage among men as key factors driving this gap.”
Red meat – namely beef and lamb – is the most carbon intensive of all foods and road travel accounts for three quarters of global transport emissions – more than any other form of transport. In France, the food and transport sectors account for 50% of household carbon footprints.
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Part of the reason people who identified as women had a smaller carbon footprint on average was due to wider lifestyle factors. The study found women in France were “more likely to live in large cities and poorer households and are more often unemployed or outside the labour force – all characteristics associated with lower carbon footprints".
Single men and women also had lower and more equal carbon footprints than those living in dual-adult households, for whom traditional household structures played a “key role” in shaping carbon consumption.
Women – especially women with children – were less likely to work and more likely to seek out work with shorter commutes, reducing their work-related carbon emissions. As a result, men’s “work-related trips – which include both commuting and other business-related trips – explain most of the gender gap in transport carbon footprints”, the study found.
“We did not find a gender gap in carbon footprints for planes, a transport mode seen as more gender-neutral than car," said study author Marion Leroutier, assistant professor at CREST Paris. “This suggests that the gap is explained by gender differences in preferences pre-dating climate concerns.”
'Traditional gender norms'
The opposite was true when it came to food, with women in couples having more carbon-intensive diets than their single counterparts. This is likely because women are more likely to adapt their eating habits to match their male partners’, including eating more red meat.
“Shared meals and joint decision-making may limit the expression of gendered dietary preferences,” the study said.
The overall findings indicate that “traditional gender norms, particularly those linking masculinity with red meat consumption and car use, play a significant role in shaping individual carbon footprints", Leroutier said. In other words, who people live with and how they divide household roles can significantly shape their climate impact.
For climate activists and politicians, the findings may shed light on how climate policies impact men and women differently, contributing to their success or failure.
For example, there could be an opportunity to counter carbon-intensive “cultural trends that promote raw meat or ‘all-meat’ diets – often accompanied by rhetoric dismissive of plant-based options” by “reframing plant-based alternatives as compatible with strength and performance”, Leroutier says.
Such techniques may mitigate some emissions – but not all. A male appetite for red meat and likelihood of travelling more for work does not completely explain France’s climate gender gap. Even after accounting for socioeconomic, calorific and travel differences, 25% of the foot footprint gap and 38% of the transport footprint gap remain unexplained, the study said.
“More research is needed to understand whether these differences in carbon footprints are also partly due to women’s greater concern about climate change and their higher likelihood of adopting climate-friendly behaviours in daily life,” Leroutier added.
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