Abstract
In environmental management and sustainability there is an increasing
interest in measurement and accounting of beneficial impact - as an
incentive to action, as a communication tool, and to move towards a
positive, constructive approach focused on opportunities rather than
problems. One approach uses the metaphor of a “handprint”,
complementing the notion of environmental footprints, which have been
widely adopted for impact measurement and accounting. We analyse this
idea by establishing core principles of handprint thinking: handprint
encourages actions with positive impacts, connects to analyses of
footprint reductions, but adds value to them, and addresses the issue of
what action should be taken. We also identify five key decisions that
need to be made in performing a (potentially quantitative) handprint
assessment, related to scoping of the improvement to be made, how it is
achieved, and how credit is assigned, taking into account constraints on
action. A case study of the potential water footprint reduction of an
average Finn demonstrates how handprint thinking can be a natural
extension of footprint reduction analyses. We find that there is a
diversity of possible handprint assessments that have the potential to
encourage doing good. Their common foundation is “handprint thinking”.