How to calculate carbon footprint?

Question

I know there are carbon foot print calculators online, but I want one I can do manually. We're having a booth at an earth day fun fair, and I want to print a single copy out, and have people mentally calculate their carbon footprint, so we can tell them ways to reduce it! Can anyone help me??

Answer 1

It would be very complicated to offer a manual calculator due to the huge variations in regional areas, carbon emissions from varying types of cars and each source saying varying amounts sometimes with a huge range.

There is a great online calculator at http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculato...

If you still wish to go with the manual calculation here are some of the multiple factors for the calculator from sources I have looked at in the past.

Electricity - 0.43kg of Co2 / kWh (Defra 2005), if from renewables, then 0.00kg/kWh

Natural Gas - 0.19kg of Co2 / kWh

LPG - 1.49kg of Co2 / litre

Oil - 2.69kg of Co2 / litre

Coal - 2.55kg of Co2 / litre

Car Milage - You can find Co2 data for all car types at

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk it might be best to offer 3 to 5 different types of car in varying engine ranges.

Bus - 0.073kg / mile (Department of Transport, Canada)

Train - 0.027kg / mile (Virgin Trains)

Underground - 0.070kg / mile (kingston.ac.uk)

Flights - This is not hugely accurate however you can break this down to; Short-haul (within US) 600kg of Co2, Medium-haul (transatlantic / east coast to west coast) 1300kg of Co2 or Long-haul (world wide) 3700 kg of Co2. If you want to work this on miles rather than types a factor of 0.15kg of Co2/km (Defra 2005)

You should also include a secondary carbon footprint as follows (these are UK figures);

Food and Drink - 585kg

Clothes and Shoes - 486kg

Car Manufacture - 715kg

Buildings, Furniture and Appliances - 982kg

Recreation and Services  - 1,546kg

Finance and other services - 361kg

Share of Public Services - 1,276kg

Total Secondary Footprint - 5,950kg

It is suggested that we need to reduce our Co2 emissions to 2,500kg per person to negate climate change.

I hope this has been of help ... if you need any further information just let me know.

Energy Saver

http://howtosaveenergy.blogspot.com

http://www.howtosaveenergy.co.uk