Carbon Footprint Calculator

(You can click on the image above to access the calculator)

This is a simple Carbon Footprint Calculator. Rather than being difficult to use and comprehensive I have tried to make it easy to use and more a tool to see the difference that lifestyle choices can have on your carbon footprint.To this end I have focused on the biggest impacts different aspects of our lives have on our personal carbon footprint. Ideally we should perhaps add a measure for both other personal activities, and for the general industrial and commercial carbon emissions of a country, assigning a proportion to each resident of that country.

The calculator focuses on 5 main areas

• Diet
• Commute
• Flights Taken
• Home Heating
• Electricity

SSE Airtricity claim that 100% of the electricity they generate is from renewable sources. I have taken this claim at face value. It’s impressive if true. Electric Ireland would claim(probably correctly) that they still need to use Fossil Fuels to ensure enough electricity is available at all times. However in the long run we can hope that most electricity is generated from rewnewables and store in different ways(batteries / hydro etc.)

I have not yet allocated an option for Electric cars. They still need a lot of power to operate but the hope is that if this is from electricity it could be from renewable sources. Also sometimes it will be part of your electricity bill, or at the moment, you might be able to use the free on-street chargers provided by Electric Ireland.

There is a lot of debate at the moment about diet. The Lancet medical journal published research suggesting that the world’s entire population would have to shift to a nearly Zero-Meat diet to ensure sustainability. This caused a lot of consternation amongst meat eaters. But just because they don’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Long-term sustainable CO2 emissions per person are really low. At the moment there is a huge disparity between the extremely high emissions by industrialised nations(USA & Europe particularly) and the rest of the world(particularly Africa). This will have to change. Estimated population growth is still high but is reducing. It’s going to be a really tough challenge but with the right mindsets, political will and the right modern technologies it will be possible. But people, industry and politicians need to stop shirking responsibility and take action now.

http://www.co2list.info/topics/goals

Thanks for visiting and reading. If you click on the title of the post, you can go to a page where you can comment. Any suggestions on how to improve the calculator or just opinions/discussions in general are welcome. Abuse is not.

You can find the calculator at

http://analytics.richardfitzsimons.ie/sample-apps/cfc/

I needed to get data for all the various factors that are used in the calculator. Some of these sources are listed below.

Sources on diets came from

Source : http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet

Sources on commuting options came from

Source : https://www.sightline.org/2008/02/08/planes-trains-and-automobiles/

Sources on Aviation Emissions came from

Source : https://www.carbonindependent.org/sources_aviation.html

While sources on Electricity generation came from

Sources :
https://www.electricireland.ie/residential/help/billing/fuel-mix-disclosure
https://www.bordgaisenergy.ie/docs/publications/GreenSourceProducts1.pdf
https://www.sseairtricity.com/ie/home/about-us/fuel-sources/
https://www.sseairtricity.com/uk/home/about-us/fuel-sources/