Publication Name

THE CYCLE – COUNT AND ANALYSE

KICK THE HABIT

else in an industrialized country. One notable exception is on the Carbon

Footprint site. It allows you to work out the emissions from your house,

flights, car, motorbike, bus and rail travel, and an intriguing category called

Secondary. This covers other possible sources of emissions, including food

preferences (vegetarian, organic and so on), fashion, packaging, furniture

and electrical appliances, recycling, recreation and use of financial services.

And it works not only in the US and Germany but also in such low polluters

as Burkina Faso and Tajikistan.

Comparing calculators

If by now you are becoming totally confused about which calculator (if any)

will tell you what you want to know, do not despair. The Earth Charter Initia-

tive provides a guide to carbon calculators, a list of countries where they are

based, and sites where you may find the one that best suits you. Another

site which compares and rates a number of widely-used calculators is the

UK-based Climate Outreach and Information Network,

The European Commission’s My Carbon Footprint, starts with a challenge:

“To find out how much carbon you can save, just mark the changes you

would be willing to make in each of our four categories. Our calculator will

then work out how many kilos of CO

you can save each year and give you

the chance to make a public pledge to reduce your personal carbon foot-

print.” The four categories are turning down household appliances, switch-

ing them off, recycling, and travel. You do not actually measure your current

emissions, but rather estimate the potential savings you would make by ap-

plying the measures proposed. The Commission’s site comes in all official

EU languages and provides links to national carbon calculators in a range

of European countries. National calculators are often geared to the specific

energy situation of that country and are consequently more accurate than

general-purpose calculators that do not ask you to specify your location.

Broadly speaking, a GHG calculator is always a trade-off between accuracy

and easy applicability for the users: for an accurate calculation you will have

to provide a lot of data, while simpler versions apply pre-defined standards

to types of house for example or the number of members of a household.

Offset providers and calculators

By the nature of their business, offset providers offer calculators on their

websites that determine the climate footprint of your activities and how