Find the best carbon footprint calculator-All you need to know!

The carbon footprint has become a great problem in the world today. Each and every activity of man has led to this great problem. The carbon emitted to the environment by every activity of individual, community or the society is known as carbon footprint. In order to identify the amount of carbon released it needs to be calculated. The calculations are a bit hard as you will have to calculate each and every area. Therefore, various calculators are introduced to calculate the carbon footprint. Hence let us identify the best carbon footprint calculator.

Best carbon footprint calculator

As the manual calculation of carbon footprint is a bit difficult, various organizations have introduced easy and fast calculators to calculate the carbon footprint. The only thing you have to do in this calculation is to audit on your daily activities and enter all the energy consumptions of the month to the calculator. This includes all the areas such as food, traveling, products, services, etc. hence you have to analyze and find the carbon footprint kept by each individual. Hence by understanding the total carbon released, you can take the necessary steps to reduce the activities that you involve in releasing carbon into the environment.

However, there is a lot of carbon calculators at the moment. Therefore, people are unable to find the best source to calculate their carbon footprint. According to research, it is said that the calculator maintained by the United States Environmental Protection Agency is one of the best calculators. This calculator is simple and easy to use and it also provides some hints in order to make you sure with the guesses you provide. This also provides you with some suggestions to reduce the carbon you emit into the surrounding. This also shows the options you can have to reduce carbon footprint and also the cost of living.

More about the most effective carbon footprint calculator…

Moreover, there is a calculator available online and free to use by any user. Hence this has become a very famous and useful calculator to find out the carbon footprint that each individual keeps on the planet. this calculator is provided by www.carbonfootprint.com. They also help in carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting means buying anything to avoid carbon emission. As an example, if someone is cutting down a tree for money purposes like to find the living, in such an occasion those organizations buy the tree from them to avoid carbon emission. This covers areas such as a house, flights, car, motorbike, bus, and rail, secondary and finally, gives the result.

Carbon footprint calculator food

A carbon footprint can occur as a “Carbon Foodprint”. This means carbon can be emitted through food. Whatever we eat and drink can keep a carbon footprint. Therefore, it is important to pay much attention to your daily meal. The food you eat may emit carbon dioxide into the environment.

Okay!

This is not a joke!

We know this argument seems to be a joke for you.

Wait! We are going to explain this!

If we buy an apple from the market it has a long route in traveling. This may be coming into your supermarket from a foreign country then it has come to your capital city and then to your supermarket. See the way it has traveled. So aren’t all this vehicle release carbon dioxide. So, it has emitted so many gases into the environment to meet you at the market. Hence every item that you take from the market or shops has a carbon footprint. So, the best solution for this is to cultivate a home garden or to buy organic or locally produced food.

Therefore, in all the calculators it contains this food sector to calculate the food you take and the carbon it emits to the environment. According to a record, food has a great impact on carbon footprint and it releases around 8 tons of carbon from each household or 17% of the total emission. Moreover, cheese, meat, and eggs are the food items that release more carbon to the environment.

Therefore, we must be able to reduce or avoid eating such food which is a good step to be taken in related to your health issues too.so it is time to be vegetarian. Vegetarian diet is releasing half of the carbon that can be emitted from that of a meat lover’s diet on the other hand ,vegetarians can have a long life than the ones who eat meat and also they look prettier and slimmer furthermore it also avoid the risk of heart attacks, pressure, diabetes, cancer and many more.

Tips on reducing food’s carbon footprint

• Try to cook your own meal rather than walking into the restaurants. This will reduce the carbon emitted by traveling and also eating unhealthy food.
• Try to make compost from food waste or keep the leftovers to create a new meal if possible but the best solution is to compost the waste food because if you save the leftovers you will definitely use the refrigerator in order to preserve the food. Refrigerators release so many gases into the surrounding which will impact on carbon footprint.
• When cooking from a gas, it conserves 6% of energy and an electric oven conserves 12%. So, the best solution is to simmer on a stove, use electric kettles in boiling water and use microwaves instead of an oven because it consumes half of the energy than an oven.

Measuring carbon footprint

By measuring the carbon emitted by an individual, one can come into a conclusion about how he has kept the carbon footprint on the earth. Measuring carbon footprint will help to reduce the carbon emitted to the environment by understanding the areas which release more carbon. You can measure it by calculating the total carbon emitted by an individual, community, society, organization, and institution.

The following are five simple steps that can be used to calculate the carbon footprint. Hence by following them, you can easily find out the size of the carbon footprint that you have kept on the planet earth.

1. Understanding your motivation. It is important to understand why are you doing the calculation. If you are doing it as a report to be given to the business and nothing personal about it, this is a big issue because a person should genuinely understand his responsibilities towards society. Unless he does this genuinely this will become just a joke.
2. Defining the emissions. You will have to define carbon emissions. You will have to show how does each carbon has been emitted.
3. Reducing carbon emission. As we have talked a lot about this matter. You know how to reduce carbon emissions like traveling less etc.
4. Verifying about the carbon footprint that you released.
5. Reporting on the emitted carbon in order to reduce it by using the help of other members or if it is a workplace you can report it to the higher officers, shareholders and all the staff members and you can take necessary steps as a whole team to protect our planet.

How to calculate carbon footprint manually?

• Firstly, you will have to calculate the number of members in your house. The lesser the number of members in your house, lessen the size of the carbon emission. So, once you calculated the number, you can easily divide the whole emission through the number of the member to find out the carbon emitted by each individual.
• Consider the size of the house. The larger the house, the larger the carbon footprint will be.
• Reconsider the food that you ate throughout the period and consider about your food choices. Try to reduce eating fast foods, food from restaurants and avoid using a vehicle to drive far for dinner outs, etc. its time to go vegetarian because meat lovers contribute more with a carbon footprint.
• Consider the consumption of the water and try to figure out the areas where your wastewater. Try to repair the leaking taps etc, try to use low-flow showers and flushes and avoid keeping taps open unwantedly. Use washing machines with proper water management. Use cold water instead of hot water.
• Get a detail report of how many new household items you purchase for a year. Avoid buying new furniture and household to the house because every household you buy impact on the carbon footprint.

There are more steps to go!

• Find how much you waste during a week. The waste produced by a house is directly affecting the carbon footprint. So, plan your meals ahead in order to reduce the waste of food. This will be a great step to be taken to reduce your economic cost too. Rather than throwing your waste food, try sharing it with someone who is in need.
• If you do not recycle this step needs not to be considered but if you do recycle find the number of wastes that you recycle. This is a plus point on your carbon cycle. Here you will have to subtract your recycled materials from the total you have got up to now. Moreover, if you are not a recycling person start to recycle your waste products now.

The following are types of products that can be recycled:

1. Glass
2. Plastic
3. Food
4. Steel and aluminium

• Find out the distance you travelled on your own vehicle, public transport or any means of transport even the air travels and calculate the amount of carbon that you have released to the environment.
• Finally, add all the points together and find out the total carbon emission done by each individual of your house. Thereby find the average carbon footprint of each person of the house. Finally, understand the areas that you have to control and pay much attention in order to limit the release of carbon dioxide into the environment.

As a whole, the carbon footprint can be calculated using collecting facts of your personal home use of energy, water, and waste use and divide it by the number of people living at your home and then multiply individual energy consumption from emissions factor (EF). This should be calculated in your house, traveling, food, products, and services.

As an example, it should be calculated as follows:

• (consumption(kCal/day*365*EF(kgCO₂e/kCal))
• (spend ($/month) * 12 * EF (kg CO₂e/$)
• (spend ($/month) * 12 * EF (kg CO₂e/$) = emissions (kg CO₂e/yr.))

These calculations are easy to do in a simple carbon footprint calculator provided by US agency or by the www.carbonfootprint.com. Therefore, I recommend using such calculators to get the exact result rather than going for manual methods.

Wrapping Up…

However, by understanding all the facts above you can calculate your carbon footprint. Many websites have used carbon footprint ppt to explain it more clearly. Though there are many awareness programs still carbon footprint has not reduced in the environment. Hence in order to solve this, every individual should play their role responsively.

You can also take part in resolving this problem by supporting carbon offsetting projects held by different organizations. If we did not take this issue seriously, this will lead to our personal detriment because in an environment with so many gases we will have to face many climate changes, depletion of natural resources, global warming which is a big issue we are facing even at the moment and we will not be able to breathe pure air in the near future. So, are we going to dig our own grave? The choice is yours? If you take one simple step to change your daily living without polluting the environment by avoiding the release of carbon you can live happily and healthily.

Conclusion

Conclusively, the above factors would help to find the best carbon calculator so we should take measures to shorten the release of harmful greenhouse gases like methane and mainly CO₂ into the environment. This is not something that can be done alone, this should be teamwork. You must take this as a personal responsibility in protecting our world for the future. Stay alert of your surroundings, home, college, office and where ever you go and try to make people aware of the current situation of the world. Ask your friends, relatives, staff members, organization and neighbors to calculate their carbon footprint and by referring that to take action in reducing the emission of CO₂. So, start your work now! Let us join together in shortening our carbon footprint!