What is my Carbon Footprint? Part 2

I mentioned in my previous post that my other favorite carbon footprint calculator is found in the Global Footprint Network. I would like to make a correction. Their calculator measures ecological footprint which includes carbon footprint as a subset of the total ecological footprint.

Determining your footprint in this calculator is a pleasantly enjoyable experience because of the pictures and graphics. You begin answering the quiz by customizing your avatar and see it move across the screen as the background fills-up with graphics as questions are answered.

my avatar walking on an empty lot before the quiz

In the calculator, the questions are on different categories – from food to transportation.

In some questions, you have the option to provide basic or detailed answers. For example for the question, “How often do you eat animal-based products?”, your answer can be based on animal products as a whole or you can provide answers per animal product type such as beef, poultry, pork, etc.

sample question on the food category (you can either provide basic or detailed information)

Other questions are straightforward – “How many persons live in your household”, “What is the structure of your house” – very similar to the questions from other carbon footprint calculators.

Here’s what the calculator looks like after I completed the quiz.

quiz completion (with added background per type of answer)

So after completing the quiz, I found out my carbon footprint is 20 tons of CO2 emitted in a year. I’m not surprised that this number is different from the carbon footprint calculated in Yahoo Green.

This is a concern for the many carbon footprint calculators in the web. Using different calculators may yield different results.

Carbon footprint calculation is not an exact science. Different organizations have different methods of computing carbon footprint. Calculators even have different sets of questions to come up with the footprint.

I personally think that, regardless of the difference, it is important to begin with a figure. It helps me discover my impact on the environment. Then I can begin to change my lifestyle in little ways and watch the figure decrease as I slowly minimize my carbon emissions. It might not happen immediately but at least I’m helping in whatever way I can.