What Do You Need to Calculate Your Carbon Footprint?

For the first two calculators above, this is all the information you'll need. If you use the Carbon Calculator website, be prepared with estimates of the amount you spend yearly on many other consumer items, including food, restaurants, and prescription drugs. These are enumerated in the "secondary" tab on this site's calculator. Also available exclusively on this site are items to offset your CO2e (and links to purchase them). For example, to offset five tons of your carbon emission equivalents, you can "add to your basket" $64.85 for reforestation in Kenya. Where do the dollars go? According to the website, "Your funding supports the planting of native broad-leaved trees in the Great Rift Valley, and supports its developing community."

What Is the Average Household Carbon Footprint?

In 2008, MIT's Science Daily estimated the average U.S citizen's carbon footprint as 20 metric tons. The World Bank 2014 estimate of U.S. per capita carbon emissions is 16.5 metric tons. A chart from the Knoema World Data Atlas may help explain these discrepancies, as it shows a reduction in the U.S. per capita CO2e from 1970 to 2016, peaking at about 23 tons in 1973 and decreasing to 15.56 in 2016. Only China is a worse polluter than the United States, mainly because of its much higher population. The world average per capita CO2e is 4 tons, compared to the United States' 15.56, and China's 7.55).

What Does Carbon Footprint Mean for Homeowners?

For consumers unfamiliar with measurements and quantities of these kinds, analysis of where a household's emissions run highest may be more useful than knowing the number that is their "footprint." For example, I thought our air travel would adversely impact our household footprint than it does (the addition was only about 1.65 metric tons in a total of 28). In fact, what accounted for nearly half of our total was not energy expenses or car/airplane travel, but personal consumption—a huge part of which was food.

An article by earthday.org says that U.S. buildings account for 39% of primary energy consumption. The two most common sources of energy for buildings, the report continues, are purchased electricity and direct use of natural gas and petroleum for heating and cooking. Our Sustainable House Hunting Tips article on important sustainability considerations when you are shopping for a home. Another Rise article discusses how a home's "sound building envelope, triple glazed windows, a heat pump, and high-efficiency insulation," for example, will help reduce its carbon emissions—as well as home automation tools.

Does Food Impact a Household's Carbon Footprint?

As stated by the University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems, "on average, U.S. household food consumption emits 8.1 metric tons of CO2e each year. The production of food accounts for 83% of emissions, while its transportation accounts for 11%." (There are significant energy savings by eating locally grown food.) "Meat products have larger carbon footprints per calorie than grain or vegetable products because of the inefficient transformation of plant energy to animal energy."