Socio-ecological inequalities in housing consumption: How income, urban form, and tenure drive carbon footprints

The provision of decent housing is both a global social priority and a productive activity with long-term environmental implications. Investigating the unequal distribution of housing resources and their associated greenhouse gas emissions, from heating to materials, construction, and use, allows us to foreground housing as a key site of socio-ecological inequalities in today's economies. This paper develops a model for assessing such inequalities as they relate to the overall use of materials and energy in the provision and operation of housing. Our interdisciplinary and multidimensional analysis of housing consumption in the Netherlands brings together income, urban form, building age, tenure, and housing typology, and includes patterns of mobility and daily use. We draw on a unique combination of sources—register data about the Dutch population and housing stock, a mobility survey, and life cycle inventory data—to reveal that a) the carbon footprint per person differs starkly between richest and poorest groups; b) the low-density locations and income of richer households drive mobility emissions; c) rental units show larger carbon footprints related to lower quality housing stock; and d) suburbanization offsets emissions-saving investments in owner-occupied stock. We end by calling for further interdisciplinary research into ways to provide socially just and environmentally sustainable housing, and policy interventions to tackle excess in housing consumption, invest in social rental stock, and foster density in planning policies. • Up to 50-fold difference in carbon footprint of most and least emitting groups. • Income and sprawl of rich households drive mobility emissions in the Netherlands. • Housing tenure shapes energy use and efficiency via access to clean technology. • Lower quality rental stock induces larger building-related carbon footprints. • Suburban car use offsets emission savings of energy-efficient owner-occupied stock.