A study to determine the relations between living standards and carbon footprint among geomatics engineers in Turkey

This study contains the results of "Living Standards Survey" which created with Google Drive and has a total of 38 questions. The participants are members of Chamber of Survey and Cadastre Engineers which has over 10000 members and attached to Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, one of the most important non-governmental organizations of Turkey. The participants are informed via e-mail. Among the questions of survey; besides personal information questions like birth year, city of residence, sex, school that graduated from and graduation year, questions like heating method choices, amount of bills, transportation frequency and transportation preferences are served as the basis of this study. 645 responses received from approximately 13000 members of the chamber. This gave us 3.8% margin of error. This margin of error calculated using a accuracy formula. The overall margin of error that used I studies is 5%. Any margin of error above 10% is highly not recommended. All these responses saved to the tables on Google Spreadsheets automatically by Google Drive and arranged by answers that participants gave. Data exported in Microsoft Excel format to make editing on it and to use in the GIS. There is not a standard way to calculate carbon footprint. There are many web sites that can be used for calculating carbon footprint. In this study, WWF's calculator used. According to the responds of the surveys questions, a personal carbon footprint value was calculated for each participant. According to the responses to the surveys, most of the participants are young engineers. 5.9% of the participants were born in 1987. 1988 born participants are follow with 5.7% and 1984 born participants are 5.4%. About the sex, 87% of the participants are male. 23.4% of all participants are live in Istanbul. Ankara follows with 16.9% and İzmir with 5%. According to the answers of the question "Where are you from?" Trabzon is first with 8.2% and Konya is second with 4.8%. Ankara follows with 3.7%. About the graduated school, Yıldız Technical University has the highest rate with 26.8% (Probably because it has the oldest program among all the other universities.) and about graduation year, 2013 is the first with 7.3%. About the sectors that the participants work, a total of 59% of the participants are working in the private sector. 34% of the participants work for private sector as employees and %25 of the participants as employers. 28% are work in the public sector and 8% are academicians. 41.6% of the participants have salary between 2800 and 4000 Turkish Liras. 74% of the participants only have bachelor's degree. 20% has master's degree and 6% of all participants have PhD. According to the answers of question "Do you have a personal vehicle?", 90% of the participants have a vehicle. 63% of all participants have automobile, 4% have jeep and 3% have motorcycle. Among all the participants, 10% of them have 2013 model vehicles and again 10% of the participants have 2012 model vehicles. 30.5% of the participants said "I consume organic food and buy from well-known supermarket chains.". About packaged fresh food, 39.2% of the participants said "I never buy any packaged fresh food." and about packaged frozen food, 47.8% of the participants said "I never buy any packaged frozen food." at the highest rate. 96.4% of the participants said that they pay attention to the expiration date of the products. About the furniture and electronic devices, 81.7% of the participants said that "I only buy necessary furniture and use them until they're old." and 58.6% of the participants said "I only buy necessary electronic devices and use them until they're old." About recycling, the highest rate answer is "A small part of my waste goes into recycling." with 41.6%. About the activities, 53.3% of the participants answered the question with "I only enjoy activities without carbon emission like walking, cycling etc." As the results of calculation, Muş has the highest average carbon footprint value among all the cities of Turkey with 20,86 tones CO2/year per capita. Bitlis is second with 19.68 tones CO2/year per capita and Batman is third with 18.82 tones CO2/year per capita. If we look at the cities with the lowest carbon footprints, Kars has the lowest with 9.81 tones CO2/year per capita. Tunceli follows with 11.40 tones CO2/year per capita and Kırşehir has 11.52 tones CO2/year per capita. We don't have any participants from Ardahan, Bartın, Bayburt, Elazığ, Erzincan, Erzurum, Hakkâri, Karabük, Kırıkkale, Kilis, Nevşehir, Siirt and Yalova, so we could not calculate carbon footprint values for these cities. Among the geographic regions of Turkey, Black Sea Region has the lowest average with 14.63 tones CO2/year per capita. Central Anatolia Region follows with 14.71 tones CO2/year per capita. For the highest values, Mediterrenean Region has the highest with 15.73 tones CO2/year per capita, Marmara Region comes right after with 15.70 tones CO2/year per capita. For the age groups, there is a correct proportion. 20-30 age group has 14.25 tones CO2/year per capita, 30-40 age group has 15.47 tones CO2/year per capita and average of the group that has participants that older than 40, has an average of 16.25 tones CO2/year per capita. Between males and females, male participants have an average carbon footprint value of 15.34 tones CO2/year per capita, on the other hand female participants have 15.29 tones CO2/year per capita. Among the European regions, Eastern Europe has the lowest average with 6.80 tones CO2/year per capita and Western Europe has the highest with 15.00 tones CO2/year per capita. Among the European countries, average carbon footprint value calculated as 9.8 tones CO2/year per capita. Albenia has the lowest average with 1.8 tones CO2/year per capita, followed by Armenia with 2.1 tones CO2/year per capita. On the other hand, Luxembourg has the highest average with 24.6 tones CO2/year per capita and Belgium is second with 22.2 tones CO2/year per capita. About place of Turkey, among the 37 countries that has data, Turkey has the 5th highest average value with 15.3 tones CO2/year per capita.