Critics argued that the concept of individual footprint can shift responsibility away from the corporations and institutions and onto personal lifestyle choices.

Critics argued that the concept of individual footprint can shift responsibility away from the corporations and institutions and onto personal lifestyle choices.

The idea of a personal carbon footprint was popularized by a large advertising campaign of the fossil fuel company BP in 2005, designed by Ogilvy. It instructed people to calculate their personal footprints and provided ways for people to "go on a low-carbon diet". Critics argued that the aim was to shift responsibility away from the corporations and institutions and onto personal lifestyle choices. The strategy has had some success, with a rise in consumers concerned about their own personal actions, and creation of multiple carbon footprint calculators. This strategy, also employed by other major fossil fuel companies, has been criticized for trying to shift the blame for negative consequences of those industries onto individual choices. Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University have argued that concepts such as carbon footprints "hamstring us, and they put blinders on us, to the systemic nature of the climate crisis and the importance of taking collective action to address the problem". The term carbon footprint has been applied to limited calculations that do not include Scope 3 emissions or the entire supply chain. Carbon footprinting is not universally mandated. Voluntary actions can use a range of methodologies