How to Calculate Your Carbon Footprint

Warren Evans

Now that you understand what your carbon footprint is, it’s time to calculate your carbon footprint.

Fortunately, you can calculate your carbon footprint using a number of useful online carbon footprint calculators we have reviewed and collected below.

While each carbon footprint calculator differs, you can establish a good baseline for your habits and activities that contribute the most to your carbon footprint.

Then, you can implement steps to reduce your emissions, live cleanly, and even save money.

The Importance of the Carbon Footprint Calculator

Carbon footprint calculators establish a benchmark for individuals to compare their carbon emissions and see where they fall behind most.

Carbon footprint calculators can be an efficient tool to whip individual action toward greener objectives.

Far from being consistent and formal policy tools, carbon footprint calculators provide imperfect measurements but can illustrate areas where individuals can reduce their carbon output.

Calculating Your Carbon Footprint

Our top recommendation is to use Berkley’s CoolClimate Calculator, as it considers the most variables we have seen, such as the type of car you drive and how often you fly, etc.

To get started, input where you live, the size of your household, and your income. From there, you’ll fill out specific questionnaires related to your travel habits, what you consume, and even what your last electricity bill was worth.

Once you input all of the variables, Berkeley’s CoolClimate network will show you where you stand on the leaderboards in terms of how much or little carbon you emit.

Most importantly, the calculator provides actionable suggestions you can take to lower your footprint, such as purchasing an EV and the savings you can achieve versus its upfront cost.

However, like all carbon footprint calculators, this one can only give you a rough estimate of your personal footprint. We recommend using multiple carbon footprint calculators and averaging your results for a more precise measurement.

Carbon Footprint Calculators

With literally dozens of carbon footprint calculators available on the web, we chose a few that we found the most useful for the average person.

Travel.Carbonfootprint.com: This calculator accounts for greenhouse gasses generated from travel, including flights, motorbikes, cars, and much more.
The Nature Conservancy: This sophisticated calculator factors in variables such as food, travel, shopping, and home heating and cooling.
EPA’s Carbon Footprint Calculator: This simple calculator tallies up three different forms of emissions: home energy, transportation, and waste.

Explore other carbon footprint calculators to learn more about activities that are driving high emissions.

Factors that Influence Your Carbon Footprint Calculation

Since every carbon footprint calculator is different, it’s essential to discuss which factors we have found influence their calculation and your personal carbon emissions.

Income: While income may seem strange on most questionnaires, it’s generally true that emissions rise with wealth. Not only do the wealthier purchase more products, but they travel more often, generate more waste, and have bigger homes to heat. Some of this is offset by their access to more energy-efficient technology, but it far outweighs their general emissions.
Household Size: The more people in your home, the more electricity, water, and heat that is consumed.
Shopping Habits: The things you purchase need to be built, shipped, and eventually thrown away into a landfill by you–all activities that emit high emissions. In terms of purchasing products and raw materials, we need to also factor in the embodied emissions–how much carbon is used to produce something, such as cut wood.
Leisure Activities: While we can think of flights and other sources of transportation as huge emitters of CO2, other activities, such as attending a football game, an arcade, or even a restaurant, require emissions to power these activities.
Living Location: Different climates will require more energy or electricity to heat and cool their homes. Locations also impact things like access to public transportation and how far you have to drive to work.
Heat Sources: Again, heat sources and what you use to power your home are big factors in how much CO2 you emit each year.
Vehicle Efficiency: The amount you drive and how fuel efficient your car is will greatly influence your CO2 emissions.
Waste/Recycling Ratio: Waste in landfills can release harmful GHGs into the atmosphere. Waste also comes with embodied carbon and necessitates producing other products to replace the wasted ones.

Using Your Carbon Footprint Information

Once you understand where you are emitting the most carbon and greenhouse gasses, you can work on steps to help reduce your emissions and solve the problem.

Be sure to read Easy Steps to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint and continue on this journey with us as we transition to the Clean Energy Life and become proud Clean Energy Lifers.