Introduction
This calculator helps you to estimate the climate impact of your own life.
It is divided into seven categories: transport; energy; food; waste; house building; other goods and services; and public services. At the end you'll be able to see where your life has the biggest impact, and be pointed towards ways you can try and reduce this.
It's pretty easy to fill in - you don't need access to precise information. It may not quite fit your lifestyle so be creative and make guesses - but do be honest with yourself!
Though you can fill the calculator in on your own, you might find it more enjoyable to do it with other people. How about getting together a group in your meeting to go through calculators, talk about what you find and work together on reducing your impacts?
About
Calculations are made in kg of CO2-equivalent gases per year. Some activities emit gases (e.g. methane, nitrous oxide) that have a much higher impact per kg than CO2, and this is taken into account in the calculations. As far as possible the calculations account for the total impact of activities in each category, which may mean that the numbers differ from other calculators. For example, the calculations for food take into account transport and sales of food, as well as agriculture and processing. A few notes are given under each section.
For more details see 'Calculating Emissions' guide at www.livingwitness.org.uk
This calculator has been produced by Britain Yearly Meeting and Living Witness based on calculations by Living Witness. See www.quaker.org.uk and www.livingwitness.org.uk. A paper version of this calculator is available at www.quaker.org.uk/sustainability.
Transport
Travel by car
Do you drive a car?
How many miles do you drive per year?
milesWhat type of fuel does your car use?
On average are your trips less than 3 miles, or more than 3 miles?
What is the fuel consumption of the car you drive?
For what percentage of trips do you have passengers?
Public transport
How far do you travel per week by...
Flight
About how many hours do you travel by air each year (long or short haul)?
Energy in your home
To get your personal footprint for heating and appliances, enter how many people live in your home.
What type of home do you have?
Heating
How warm is your home?
How well is your house insulated?
What do you mainly use for heating your home?
How efficient is your heating?
Hot water
Do you have a hot water cylinder (not a combi boiler)?
How do you usually wash?
Do you have a solar water heater?
What do you mainly use for heating water?
Appliances
How efficient are your appliances?
How many appliances do you have and how carefully do you use them?
Do you use an oil-fired range cooker (like an Aga)?
Food
What sort of diet do you eat?
How much organic food do you eat?
How much of your food is processed or imported?
What percentage of your meals do you eat away from home?
Household waste
How much waste do you produce per week?
(Measured in black bin bags. The UK average is 23kg/wk of household waste - one full bin or two black bags)
How much do you recycle or compost?
How many skiploads of building/DIY waste does your household produce per year?
Housebuilding
The energy and cement used to provide materials and construct or extend a building produce CO2 emissions. There's no 'right' way to share these out over the lifetime of a building: we'll simply assume that the share decreases linearly over the first 50 years of the building's use, and is zero after that.
When was your home built?
Other goods and services
Greenhouse gases are emitted in the production and distribution of all the other goods (eg: clothes, furniture, electrical appliances) and services (entertainment, sport, telephone) that you buy.
How much does your household spend per month on other stuff? (clothes, furniture, entertainment)
Public services and non-profit organisations
Government and non-profit organisations provide public administration and services such as health and social care, schools, Quaker meetings, emergency services, prisons, the military etc. Doing this produces greenhouse gas emissions.
We estimate their contribution based on their share of spending to add approximately 2,400kg CO2 per person per year on average.
Next steps
First of all - take time to celebrate that you've worked through the calculator!
Then -
- Send yourself a copy of your CO2 values for future reference. You can then revisit the calculator at a later date and compare the findings, so you can see what impact your changes have had on your carbon footprint.
- Compare your findings with the UK average and averages from around the world. To avoid the worst effects of climate change, global emissions must fall to below 1.5 tonnes CO2 per person over the next 40 years.
Reduce your impact
- See quaker.org.uk/measure-and-reduce
- Why not work out the climate impact of your Quaker meeting and try to reduce that too?
See the Climate Impact Calculator for Quaker meetings and the Sustainability Toolkit
Campaign for change
Your climate impact is not just down to you! The government and the services it provides produce a lot of carbon on your behalf.
See quaker.org.uk/speak-out for ideas of what to speak out about, and how to do it.
Your climate impact
| Category | Tonnes of CO2 |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Total CO2 emissions per year | |||
| Transport | |||
| Energy | |||
| Food | |||
| Waste | |||
| Building | |||
| Other | |||
| Public services |
Comparisons
| Your impact |
|
| UK 2050 target |
3 tonnes
|
| India average |
1.3 tonnes
|
| Global average |
5.8 tonnes
|
| Current UK average |
13.7 tonnes
|
| USA average |
23 tonnes
|
Compare your climate impact with other nations' averages and the UK's 2050 target (all averages are in tonnes per person).