Explanations: Living

Types of households:

Household I stands for an energy sinner. Devices of the energy efficiency class B or C are used. This household has devices twice and uses energy with no thinking about it.
Household II describes a default household. They are using devices of the energy efficiency class A or B. Energy is not used too much but they don’t keep in mind to save energy where it is possible.
Household III is an energy efficiency class A+ and A++ devices using household. Energy saving lamps are used and generally the usage of energy is deliberate.

The isolation of the buildings is defined by average energy consumption per square meter. Buildings built before 1980 are not well isolated and are old buildings. Buildings built after 1980 are new building with isolation. Old buildings which were decorated are also defined as new buildings. Low energy and passive buildings have fixed values which you can find at EUROSTAT.
The same for the heating installations where the source for the values is EUROSTAT.

The water consumption per person and day is following:

high: 120 Liter
medium: 100 Liter
low: 80 Liter

Explanations: Own production

If someone has a solar collector, photovoltaic, wind turbine or water power plant, it is possible to enter the amount of self production.

Explanations: Mobility

The footprint for the motorized traffic contains three parts:
1. The part of the infrastructure: street, rail and airport
2. The part of the vehicle itself: car, motorbike, train and plane
3. The last part is dependent of fuel consumption. Consumption for car and motorbike are calculated by the entered values. For other means of transportation average values from literature are used.
For non-motorized traffic by bike the footprint oft he bike itself is used. Time is a factor for driving by bike or walking which is not included in the motorized traffic types.

Explanations: Food

All preliminary products are considered for the calculation oft he ecological footprint. In the case of agricultural products the production and usage of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides are included. This is the reason why conventional produced food has much more ecological pressure than food from biological production.


Sources:

ESU-ETHZ. Ökoinventare von Energiesystemen, 3. Auflage. Bundesamt für Energiewirtschaft, 1996, Zürich
http://www.strom-und-wassersparer.de/arbeitshilfe.htm#Wasserverbrauch
Krotscheck C, Narodoslawsky M. The Sustainable Process Index A new dimension in ecological evaluation. Ecological Engineering 1996; 6(4): 241
EUROSTAT, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat