Carbon Footprint Estimator

This is a simple tool to get a rough estimate of your annual Carbon emissions, and to see how you can reduce them. Please fill in as much information as you can remember. Don't worry if you cannot answer a question - we will use an expected value (shown in grey on the text field) instead.
  1. Choose your food preference:-




  2. How many times a month do you eat out / order food?


  3. How many people are there in your home?


  4. How many units (kWh) of electricity does your family use a month?


  5. How many cylinders of gas does your family use a year?


  6. How many kilometers do you travel by _____ a week?







  7. How many times did you fly last year?



  8. Do you compost or otherwise recycle your waste?



Reducing your Carbon Footprint

There are many practical steps you can take to reduce your Carbon footprint.
  1. Food - Replacing (or at least reducing) animal products such as dairy, eggs and meat with plant-based alternnatives can save up to 320 kg a year.
  2. Electricity - Installing solar panels, replacing air-conditioners and geysers with fans and solar water heaters, etc.
  3. Cooking gas - Replacing LPG with induction cookers or biogas.
  4. Transportation - Shifting from petrol / diesel cars to public transport / electric cars. An average Indian petrol / diesel car has a Carbon footprint of 240 grams per kilometre. In contrast, EVs have about 100, busses 80, Metro rail 30 and long-distance rail 5-10. Switching from cars to public transport can save up to 2000 kg a year, not to mention savings in cost and air pollution.
  5. Recycling - Recycling organic wastes such as newspapers and kitchen waste.

Limitations of Carbon Footprints

The use of Carbon footprints has been criticised on three main aspects:-
  1. It ignores other environmental impacts - Carbon footprints do not account for other types of environmental damage, such as biodiversity loss or pollution.
  2. Calculation is subjective - It is extremely difficul to calculate the exact Carbon footprint of an individual, society or activity. Any estimation will inevitably involve approximations and assumptions.
  3. It shifts attention and responsibility to individuals - Fossil fuel companies have been criticised for promoting the concept of individul Carbon footprints, shifting the blame from themselves to individuals. For example, the average Indian has an annual Carbon footprint of about 2 tonnes. Meanwhile, a single fossil fuel company, Aramco, has an estimated annual Carbon footprint of 1.8 billion tonnes, which is more than half of India's total footprint.

Disclaimer

This programme is intended only to give a broad estimate of your Carbon footprint. Your actual Carbon footprint depends on many more factors than are listed here, and so may vary from the calculated estimate.

Click here to read more about the calculation formula.

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