I had been taking an Instagram course for our short-term rental, and the instructor had a post about how to calculate your carbon footprint. He was in the UK... so the site he used wasn't ideal for us.
But no worries... I found a Canadian one - Carbonzero Calculator
Carbon Categories
There are all sorts of categories...
- Utilities
- Vehicles
- Flights
- Transit
- Fuel
- Shipping
- Waste
There is a whole section on calculator methodology and I leave that to you to read... As a caveat, I'm not sure how to calculate Shipping so that category is going to be empty for us. I presume that would be for people who do a LOT of shopping on Amazon and Wayfair... which is not us... so going to leave that for now...
We also don't use Transit so that is going to be blank for us...
Carbon Footprint - Utilities
The first step is to calculate Utilities - which includes Heating and Electricity. Given that we have electric heating with the heat pump - we only had one category here...
The calculator asked us for total kwh and I got that off of our BC Hydro Account - May 1 to May 1. It also asked what province we are in... which is British Columbia.
Oookaaayyyy... well... that answered that question. Don't move back to Alberta. Ever.
Carbon Footprint - Vehicles & Fuel
Let's go through Vehicles. We have a little 2011 Kia Soul that we drive about 10,000 km a year - mix of highway and city driving. And... we get 0 tonnes? That's weird... but I did a little test and chose a 2022 Ford F-150 pick-up truck... same distance, same type of driving and it's pushing 3 tonnes... so this must have to do with the age and type of vehicle...
As for fuel... this is where it gets scarier! I calculated that I generally put 40 litres of fuel into our little Soul once a week, so 2000 litres of fuel a year, give or take...
Carbon Footprint - Waste & Recycling
This section wanted to know the weight of our waste and recycling... I went to our city's website and pulled up the average weights for a household in our city. I tend to think we throw out less garbage than the average household but... let's run with that... So 200 kg of garbage per year and 150 kg of recyclables (mixed).
Well, that's not too bad either.
Basic Carbon Footprint - no Flights
Right then... so our total greenhouse gas emissions for the year are pushing 5 tonnes. Which isn't bad. You can see that gasoline is the biggest generator of CO2. If we had an electric car... we'd be smiling... although then our vehicle emissions (probably from making it) would be higher than 0.
Carbon Offsets
After calculating your carbon footprint... you can then choose to purchase carbon offsets. On this site, they run about $30 per tonne... so we would be spending $150/year on offsets. There are other sites which have cheaper offsets. And since all of the projects on CarbonZero seem to be "completed"... I'm not sure of the benefits of purchasing an offset here. The Gold Standards website on the other hand is highly recommended by the Suzuki Foundation... and there are tonne of offset projects here - some at $15/tonne, and some higher. The Gold Standards site recommends that, if you don't know your carbon footprint, you choose an average for your country. For Canada, this would be 2 tonnes/month. Ergh...
But then... I haven't added flights into the mix... so let's do that!
Carbon Footprint - Flights
This is the scary part I think... so let's just bite the bullet and do it. The site makes it easy... all you need to enter is your starting airport, destination airport, class and whether it's round trip or economy... Here we go...
Now... here's the weird thing... distance wise, Cancun is 4500 km while Mom is 700 km (one way). So it's a bit odd that Mom's flights are more tonnes than Cancun... but maybe it has to do with the size of the planes... bigger planes mean the carbon footprint is spread out over more people. Maybe...
But... these flights have turned into scarey-ville!
Carbon Footprint - with Flights
It's the gasoline. It's the flights. If we didn't drive or fly, our carbon footprint would be miniscule. But we do... so it's not.
Now... divide this by two as well... some for me... some for my partner. And still... 12 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year... that's a bit dismaying. And yes... we could just buy some carbon offsets but... ideally... we would move in the direction of less gasoline and less flights. It's those vacation and family flights that are the kicker.
Oh, and this calculator doesn't even include diet in there! A meat-eater diet has twice as much carbon footprint as a vegan...
Another Carbon Footprint Site
That's where the Carbon Footprint Calculator comes in handy - it has a bunch of different secondary categories that can make a difference. Although it doesn't include the Waste/Recycling category. But then... when I do that one... I get this.
I'm not sure about all of this... The car bit includes gas and yet... it is way less than the CarbonZero calculation. And the flights are much less as well. The Mom flight is 0.21 tonnes! Although, it does add the secondary bits - things like food (makes a difference if you are vegetarian or a heavy/medium meat eater), also pharmacy and clothes and furniture.
Ugh... I can see why some people just go with the average for their country! But let's just say our household is running at 24 tonnes/year (added in those secondary bits to our CarbonZero total). So that means each of us is about 12 tonnes/year or 1 tonne/month. That is in line with most European countries. The average for Canada is 2 tonnes/month/individual. But as we saw above... Alberta is VERY different from BC in terms of electricity footprints. Soooo... I'm going to run with 1 tonne/month and leave Albertans to fend for themselves.
Carbon Offsets
There are a LOT of places out there that sell carbon offsets. Some are legit... some less so. The David Suzuki Foundation has a pdf that can help you navigate where to purchase your offsets (https://davidsuzuki.org/science-learning-centre-article/purchasing-carbon-offsets-a-guide-for-canadian-consumers-businesses-and-organizations/). The other site is the Gold Standards site mentioned already above... (https://marketplace.goldstandard.org/collections/projects).
I'm going to have to look through everything and choose one to use as my offset. And look at ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint. It's the hydrocarbons (gas, jet fuel, etc) that are the high ticket items.
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