Estimate Your Carbon Footprint and Your Own Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Like the quest to act sustainably with resources and to be self-sufficient, carbon dioxide emissions are a personal responsibility as well as a national one. Your individual carbon footprint showcases your personal impact.
Your total footprint is the amount of greenhouse gases you produce in units of carbon dioxide via your net activities, such as electrical, oil and gas use, travel (car, train, plane, bike), and consumption of consumer goods and food that release carbon dioxide during processing and transport.
Things such as replacing light bulbs with more efficient LED ones, and using wind and solar power for your home, solar hot water units can make a big difference. However renewable energy is complicated and expensive and there are many simpler things you can do immediately.
We are all in this together and collectively individuals can make a difference. One of the keys to understanding what you can do is the visualize where most of your carbon dioxide emissions are coming from. Is it your electricity use? Is it your daily transport? Is it you airline travel?
This article provides a simple tool for calculating your own carbon footprint and seeing what activity is contributing most carbon dioxide.
How to Calculate Your Own Carbon Footprint
There are a number of free online tools with varying degrees of complexity and accuracy:
- The EPA Tool
To make a very simple estimate of your carbon emissions simply print the table below.
Make the calculations for each of the items shown, using the multipiers and add up the results.
While not as accurate as other methods it will be a good guide in relative terms.
It will show what are the major sources of carbon dioxide for your lifestyle and situation.
This will highlight the changes that are likely to be most effective in reducing your own footprint.
Find the two or three items with the largest totals and these will be the ones you should focus on first.
Experiment with various scenarios to examine how various changes you make will affect the outcome in the results and the totals.
See what sort of changes would be required to reduce your footprint by:
- 10%
- 25%
- 50%
- 75%
Explore the range of options available to achieve these targets.
Carbon Footprint Calculation Sheet to Estimate Total Tons of Carbon Dioxide You Emit Each Year
|
Carbon Source
|
Your Value
|
Multiplier
|
Result
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Monthly Electricity Bill ($)
|
105
|
||
|
Monthly Gas Bill ($)
|
105
|
||
|
Monthly Oil Bill ($)
|
113
|
||
|
Total Annual mileage for your car (miles per year)
|
0.8
|
||
|
Number of airplane flights less that 4 hours duration
|
1100
|
||
|
Number of airplane flights more that 4 hours duration
|
4400
|
||
|
Add 184 if you do not recycle newspapers and other paper
|
add 185
|
||
|
Add 166 if you do not recycle tin cans and aluminum cans
|
add 166
|
||
|
TOTAL
|
-------
|
(sum the results)
|
How Do You Compare?
There are a number of general categories for footprint size (Total score in table above):
- Below 6,000 - Very small footprint - Well Done
- Above 22,000 - Very large footprint - Urgent Action Required
- 6000 - 22,000 - Moderate Footprint - Some action required to act more responsibly
How Can I Reduce the Size of My Carbon Footprint?
How to Reduce Your Electricity and Heating/Cooling Bills
- Unplug Devices when not in use
- Install a Smart Power meter or use an Electricity Use Tracker (various apps and other tools are available)
- Power Down Devices that are not being used
- Switch Off Lights when not being used
- Replace and clean air filters in your Home to improve efficiency
- Keep Doors and Windows Closed and install extra insulation
- Replace Appliances with Energy Efficient Ones
- Change your Thermostat to more Sustainable Levels
- Replace your light bulbs with energy efficient LED models
- Invest in Carbon Offsets
Other Methods
Focus on the two or three other items that contribute most to the results in the table.