Publication Name

THE CYCLE – COUNT AND ANALYSE

KICK THE HABIT

INDIVIDUALS

For individuals, carbon calculators simplify compiling an inventory. Typi-

cally you will need to know your electricity consumption in kWh, how

much and what kind of fuel you use to heat your water and warm the

house, and how many kilometres you drive, fly and ride in different ve-

hicles. You also need to decide the limits of the system you are concerned

with, whether it is you as individuals, your household, or the company

you work for.

And that still leaves unsettled the range of the emissions you are prepared

to acknowledge. It may be simply those for which you are directly respon-

sible – the fumes that come out of your car’s exhaust and the emissions

from your central heating. But you may decide to set your bounds much

wider and incorporate at least some of the gases

“embedded”

in every-

thing you use or buy. But the more you include the more complex your

task to measure the emissions will become. While you might lose in ac-

curacy, you are more certain not to ignore a big chunk of your emissions.

Probably the simplest rule is to include those emissions you control and

those resulting from the products and services you pay for. It will not give

you a perfect answer or even a complete one, but it will let you make a

start, from which you can hope to improve your performance later. Just

under half the emissions for which those individuals in developed coun-

tries are responsible come from things over which we have some con-

trol, for example how much we drive and fly and how we heat and power

our homes. The rest arises indirectly from powering the places where we

work, from maintaining public infrastructure and government, and dur-

ing the production of the things we buy, including food. These are some

of the factors that anyone will want to think about as they decide how to

start their climate diet.

Carbon and climate labels might in future help to identify indirect emissions. Giv-

en the complicated life cycle of products, however, one may imagine how difficult it

is to create an accurate label at product level, let alone compare different products

with each other. A carbon label, which shows the carbon footprint inherent in put-

ting a product on the shelf, was introduced in the UK in March 2007 by the Carbon

Trust. Examples of products featuring their carbon footprint are Walkers Crisps,

Innocent Drinks, and Boots shampoos.