My Carbon Footprint (1 Viewer)

Capercaillie71

Well-known member

• Feb 5, 2007

• #1

I thought I would calculate my carbon footprint using http://www.safeclimate.net/calculator/index.php

My household results for the past year break down as follows:

Transport

My car (15000 miles/yr @ 62mpg) - 3012kg CO2
My wife's car (20,700 miles/yr @ 50 mpg) - 4344kg CO2
One return flight to London - 252 kg CO2

Electricity

6000 kWh/yr - 2664 kg CO2

Heating

3500 litres LPG/yr - 5376 kg CO2

Annual Footprint

15.6 tonnes CO2 for the household

5.2 tonnes CO2 per person

Transport 49%, Heating 34%, Electricity 17%


Does anyone know what the national average is? I've seen a figure of 11 tonnes per person quoted, but that is for the primary and secondary footprint, whereas I have just calculated the primary footprint.

Edit: because the website is American I think it uses US gallons for the mpg calculations, so I converted my fuel economy into km/l (multiply mpg by 0.354) and used that instead.

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2007

Capercaillie71

Well-known member

• Feb 6, 2007

• #2

According to this website http://www.carboncoach.com/countdown_01.html, the average primary carbon footprint in the UK is 5 tonnes, so I'm about average then.

 

turkish van

Number 1 celebrity badger

• Feb 6, 2007

• #3

Is that carbon or CO2?

 

Capercaillie71

Well-known member

• Feb 6, 2007

• #4

turkish van said:

Is that carbon or CO2?

Click to expand...

Plenty of scope for confusion here. All of the figures I have quoted are for CO2, so technically I suppose I should have said CO2 footprint rather than Carbon footprint.

 

Capercaillie71

Well-known member

• Feb 12, 2007

• #5

I found this carbon footprint calculator to be a bit easier to use than the first one:

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.html

However, it doesn't allow you to enter exact mpg figures for cars, and I found it overestimated my CO2 production from driving, although the figures for electricity and heating were very similar to the figures from the first site.

 

Wildmoreway

Well-known member

• Feb 12, 2007

• #6

I live alone and mine primary footprint came to 7,360, horrific, and I only do 5,000 a year in a 1.3 car and use only a small amount of gas and electricity.
:stuck: |=(|

 

Rob Smallwood

Well-known member

• Feb 12, 2007

• #7

What would it cost to offset a footprint of say 5000?

 

Capercaillie71

Well-known member

• Feb 12, 2007

• #8

speckled wood said:

I live alone and mine primary footprint came to 7,360, horrific

Click to expand...

The number of people in the household obviously makes a difference to an individual's carbon footprint. The easiest way of reducing my personal footprint would be to have another child, as the household footprint wouldn't really increase, but would be divided by 4 instead of 3!

As it is, I feel guilty enough about allocating a third of our household footprint to my daughter as she is only 14 months old.

If I look back a couple of years, my wife and I both drove less efficient cars (40-45 mpg) but with a similar overall mileage, and we had a less efficient boiler. I reckon our annual household footprint could have been 3 tons higher than now. Divided by only two at that stage, our individual footprints could have been as high as 9 tons each!

 

Capercaillie71

Well-known member

• Feb 12, 2007

• #9

Rob Smallwood said:

What would it cost to offset a footprint of say 5000?

Click to expand...

From what I have read, the going rate seems to be about £10 per tonne CO2 per year. So for 5000 kg, £50.

I am seriously thinking about this carbon offsetting business, but there are a number of different schemes on offer and I don't know how they compare.

More discussion here:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=77114