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Did BP popularize the concept of the 'carbon footprint'?

Friday, August 28, 2020
By Christopher Hutton
YES

The term "carbon footprint" derives from the concept of an "ecological footprint," presented in a 1992 dissertation by Mathis Wackernagel under the supervision of his Canadian professor, William Rees. The usage narrows the focus specifically to carbon emissions produced by a given activity. The term gained much wider currency thanks to advertising and promotion in the mid-2000s by BP, the large U.K.-based oil company.

In 2008 the late William Safire, a noted language authority, traced "footprint" usage to 1965, referring originally to spacecraft landings. Wackernagel and Rees later published a book about humans' ecological footprint, and Wackernagel founded and still leads the Basel-based Global Footprint Network, which promotes sustainable development approaches.

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