This month, we road-test carbon calculators to see which ones deliver the best user experience. A carbon calculator is a great tool to determine your impact and then take personal climate action. The calculators collect data from you over a number of categories such as transport, energy, water and waste. Some go further to gather information on travel, food & drink and how many purchases you make a year.
For this list, we concentrated on Australian calculators. All had their merits, all were free and all are only as good as the data you input.
Listed in order of preference.
This is a very comprehensive calculator developed by Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). There are 11 modules (or categories) with lots of options. For example, the vehicle module not only asks you the type of car you are driving but also the km you travel annually and the type of fuel. There are 2 modes, Quick and Detailed, and you can easily switch between the 2 as you progress. Lots of opportunities to put in the as much information as you like, e.g. what type of light globes in the home.
When you have completed all the modules (or just the ones you are interested in), you can look at your overall report of your greenhouse emissions. What I like is the report shows a comparison between your greenhouse gas emissions, a typical household’s greenhouse gas emissions and a green household’s greenhouse gas emissions. It’s always good to see how you are fairing compared to others.
You’ll need to create an account with the organisation to use their calculator. This site has a great little 2 min introductory video on how to use the calculator. It is very useful that you can choose to calculate for the past month, 3 months or year. There are 6 categories to work your way through – travel, energy, water, transport, food & drink and waste. You can choose to use personal data or state averages. Lots of tips throughout the calculator to guide you through your calculations. At the end, you will receive an itemised receipt with suggestions to help you reduce your impact over time. This is a really great resource for those not necessarily wanting to purchase carbon credits or offsets with the organisation. Really lovely graphics.
Once again, you will need to create an account so that you can track your footprint over time. As you work your way through various categories such as vehicles, electricity, gas, waste, water, food & drink and air travel, the emissions add up. All calculations are based on a 12 month period. You do need to do a bit of background homework for this calculator, for e.g. how many tonnes of waste you generate per year. It would take time to accurately complete this calculator which is why you need to create an account, you’d need to save your data while you go off to measure and research. I particularly like the ‘event and conference’ category. Simple to calculate with questions such as how many attendees, how much was spent on drinks, food etc.
This calculator uses a sliding scale to determine your position on such things as waste, car usage, housing (size, number of people), food (e.g. how often you eat meat) etc. However, with this calculator it is very easy to over or under estimate. For example, the waste question asks how much waste do you generate compared to your neighbours. I don’t know how full my neighbours bins are, but I guess I could go have a peak on bin night. To be fair, there is the option to ‘add details to improve accuracy’. Your results are given in ‘number of earths’ we would need if everyone lived like you. I do like their personal ‘over shoot’ day, which is the day you effectively use all the Earth’s resources for the year. Really lovely graphics. Engaging.
This interactive calculator helps you understand your carbon footprint and how you can take action to reduce it. Categories include the usual – travel, home, food and shopping which is divided into goods and services. Once you have determined your footprint, the ‘Take Action’ tab is very comprehensive with lots of great ideas that are linked to the category that has the largest footprint for your lifestyle. Nice and simple calculator with some options using sliding scales.
As mentioned earlier, these calculators are only as good as the data you put in and while most are not sophisticated enough to expertly determine your carbon footprint, they do give a good base-line figure. Regardless of what calculator you use, they can be a helpful first step towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
Are you wondering where we stand on the world stage for personal emissions? The news is not good.
Australia’s carbon footprint is significantly higher per capita than the global average making us one of the highest emitters in the world. While Australia’s total contribution to global emissions is around 1.2%, its per capita emissions are approximately 15.4 tonnes of CO2 per year, which is three times the global average. This means that each Australian emits more than three times the global average, making us one of the highest per-capita emitters in the world.
We couldn’t finish this blogpost about carbon footprint without a plug for our ‘Subscription for the Planet‘. On average, we personally generate 15.5 tonnes of carbon annually. Over its lifetime, a tree can collect and store 268kg. This means, we each need to plant 58 trees per year to bring our individual carbon production down to zero (58 X 268 = 15.5 tonnes). A little tricky for most of us in our own backyards. This is where Fifteen Trees comes in. We can annually plant 60 (we’ve rounded up) trees on your behalf. The trees are planted in Australia by community groups and via regular reports you get to see exactly where your trees are planted.
If you would like to know more about sponsoring community tree planting projects and how we can assist your sustainable journey, please contact Colleen at <[email protected]>.
Writer: Colleen Filippa
With a background in Environmental Science, Colleen is the Founding Director of Fifteen Trees. In 2009, after 20 years in primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions, Colleen left the classroom to start the company. Fifteen Trees is a social enterprise assisting individuals and companies to reduce their carbon footprint by supporting community groups such as Landcare, schools and environmental networks.
