A carbon footprint is defined as:
The total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).
In other words: When you drive a car, the engine burns fuel which creates a certain amount of CO2, depending on its fuel consumption and the driving distance. (CO2 is the chemical symbol for carbon dioxide). When you heat your house with oil, gas or coal, then you also generate CO2. Even if you heat your house with electricity, the generation of the electrical power may also have emitted a certain amount of CO2. When you buy food and goods, the production of the food and goods also emitted some quantities of CO2.
Your carbon footprint is the sum of all emissions of CO2 (carbon dioxide), which were induced by your activities in a given time frame. Usually a carbon footprint is calculated for the time period of a year.
The best way is to calculate the carbon dioxide emissions based on the fuel consumption. In the next step you can add the CO2 emission to your carbon footprint. Below is a table for the most common used fuels:
Examples:
| fuel type | unit |
CO2 emitted per unit |
| Petrol | 1 gallon (UK) |
10.4 kg |
| Petrol |
1 liter |
2.3 kg |
| Gasoline | 1 gallon (USA) |
8.7 kg |
| Gasoline | 1 liter |
2.3 kg |
| Diesel | 1 gallon (UK) |
12.2 kg |
| Diesel | 1 gallon (USA) |
9.95 kg |
| Diesel |
1 liter |
2.7 kg |
| Oil (heating) |
1 gallon (UK) |
13.6 kg |
| Oil (heating) | 1 gallon (USA) |
11.26 kg |
| Oil (heating) |
1 liter | 3 kg |
Each of the following activities add 1 kg of CO2 to your personal carbon footprint:
To calculate the above contributions to the carbon footprint, the current UK mix for electricity and trains was taken into account.
Carbon dioxide is a so called greenhouse gas causing global warming . Other greenhouse gases which might be emitted as a result of your activities are e.g. methane and ozone. These greenhouse gases are normally also taken into account for the carbon footprint. They are converted into the amount of CO2 that would cause the same effects on global warming (this is called equivalent CO2 amount).
Few people express their carbon footprint in kg carbon rather than kg carbon dioxide. You can always convert kg carbon dioxide in kg carbon by multiplying with a factor 0.27 (1'000 kg CO2 equals 270 kg carbon). See my comment to the article about personal responsibility for global warming .
The carbon footprint is a very powerful tool to understand the impact of personal behaviour on global warming. Most people are shocked when they see the amount of CO2 their activities create! If you personally want to contribute to stop global warming, the calculation and constant monitoring of your personal carbon footprint is essential.
For registered users, there is a carbon footprint calculator on this website, which allows to store individual activities like, e.g. travelling by car, train, bus or air plane, fuel consumptions, electricity bills and so on (we call the individual contributions "carbon stamps"). You can then see the amount of CO2 created for each individual activity. You can do this either in advance and use it as a help for decisions or afterwards to continually sum up your carbon dioxide emissions. Klick here to see a sample carbon footprint with some activities.
An off-line carbon footprint and primary energy consumption calculator (Excel sheet) is already available in the download section.
There are graphs available on this site for the CO2 emissions per capita by country (average carbon footprint by country). In the medium- and long term, the carbon footprint must be reduced to less than 2'000 kg CO2 per year and per person. This is the maximum allowance for a sustainable living .
Comments
Useful information about carbon footprint
Hello, your website was very useful for my project that I'm doing about carbon footprint!
Carbon footprint: Need more info about personal actions
I was looking for changes we can
make to reduce carbon foot prints at
home and school and i couldn't find a great deal here.
What you can do to reduce your carbon footprint
Have a look at these recommendation for actions to reduce the carbon footprint.
Juerg
Need more info
type http://www.zerofootprintkids.com, and it will have you take test. after that it will show you your carbon footprint, and it will tell you what you can do to reduce your footprint.
hi
Those stats were very helpful for my coursework.
cheers.
Very interesting summary of
Very interesting summary of some important info.
But can you please cite your references/evidence base?
I'd love to use your figures in a project I'm working on, but I need some evidence.
Many thanks, AL
almondus@hotmail.com
CO2 emission of fuels / evidence base
Hi,
The figures given above are mostly calculated by myself and verified with several different sources. You can find some information how to calculate CO2 emissions at the following link:
responsibility for your carbon footprint
My company is developing and producing waste air treatment systems. So this type of calculations are almost my daily business.
Juerg
How is this worked out?
How do you get 2.3Kg or CO2 from 1Kg (1 litre) of Petrol? How does this relate to the ratings of eco cars?
Of course you get more miles per Litre, but does 100 Litres of fuel in an eco friendly SMART Car produce the same ammount of CO2 as 100 Litres in a Porsche?
Thanks, Graham
Definition of carbon footprint for cars
Yes, 100 litres of fuel produce exactly the same amount of CO2 whether they are burnt in an eco car or in a SUV!
See here for the calculation of the emission for carbon dioxide (CO2).
Product of 5 plastic bags = 1kg of CO2
Hello. Would it be possible to provide further citation or explanation of the following metric? Production of 5 plastic bags = 1kg of CO2. We are trying to verify the carbon impact of plastic bag usage and this would be extremely useful information. We could site provided a sound methodology. Thanks so much!
CO2 emission for plastic bags and water bottles
The following reasoning led to the above mentioned carbon dioxide (CO2) emission for plastics:
Of course you'll find different figures on the Internet. The main factors are the weight of the plastic bag and whether the grey energy (energy used for production) is taken into account.
There is now a separate text available about the CO2 emissions for plastic bags and plastic bottles.
Juerg
Thanks
Thanks for the thorough explanation. If we were to cite this information, do you have a preference of how you would like to be featured?
Plastic bags
Could you tell me the amount of CO2 emitted for different types of plastics.. HDPE, LDPE, PET etc....each would have different amount of Co2 emitted.. what are their details ??
Thankx,
throwya12@yahoo.co.in
Carbon footprint for plastic bags and water bottles
Due to many uncertainties, it is not realistic to give different amounts of CO2 emitted for different types of plastics. For a bottle or for a plastic bag, the amount of plastic used is much more important.
Some more information is available in our separate article about CO2 emission of plastic bags and in the links within the article.
Jürg
Carbon content of fuel
I almost despaired of finding simple information on this subject against the clock; this is excellent.
carbon footprint calculation for buildings
Hi,
Do you know how can I calculate carbon footprint for utility(Electricity,Gas,Water) consumption in buildings?
Thanks
Carbon footprint for electricity and gas
Yes, to calculate the carbon dioxide emissions from electricity and gas, you can use our offline carbon footprint calculator (click on the link to download)
Regards Juerg
Thanks a lot
Hey,
Just wanted to say thank you for this information. I'm currently doing a research project on carbon footprinting and found it helpful.
Also I would like to leave something on this site if its okay. Its a link to a carbon footprint calculator www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx . I found this really neat and thought that it would be cool to share with others.
Calculate this!
I'm confused. I reuse my plastic containers and bags and recycle those that have worn out..
Those plastic bags I do purchase are made of recycled plastic.
I compost all my organic waste. I drive a fuel efficient car. I use electricity from a nuclear power plant. I burn my paper waste. My computer goes to sleep when it's not in use.
I find it quite amusing that everyone is "going green". I've been doing all the above for over 18 years and now it has become a fad. I don't buy into all the carbon credit bull. I'm just living in a responsible sensible way, and have been all along. It's about time you all caught up.
so, basically you've
so, basically you've actually taken the time to post a comment on this website whose only purpose is to have a go at everyone else and show off how much you're recycling...
Incineracitions big foodprint
The foodprint may be different, when you take recycled materials. For the second use, only the energy for recycling should be regarded. And with good recycling techniques, like kryo- recycling, all materials of the computers, you are just using, could be reused in future several times.
http://www.buendnis-zukunft.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=174
Every good recycling- system avoid the energy- demand for new production. Incineration allways increase new production. So it has a big carbonic foodprint. Its a ferry tale, that you can win "energy from waste".
Felix Staratschek
Plastic Sandwich bags vs. Plastic Sandwich Container
Please tell me the carbon footprint of a package of plastic throw away sandwich bags vs. a plastic sandwich container which can be used over and over again?
Brandon