What is a carbon footprint?

Laura

A carbon footprint is a number, often measured in tonnes, kilograms, or grams, that represents the total amount of carbon dioxide and other green-house gases that are associated with a product, person or even a country.

Imagine a carbon footprint being like a big maths sum you have to do, adding up all of the carbon that your activities release into the atmosphere, known as carbon emissions.

Anything that creates greenhouse gases can be included in your total carbon footprint. For example, if you drive to school, emissions from the petrol in your car are added together with the emissions created in the production of the food you eat and the clothes you wear.

Even the objects we use every day have carbon emissions, like a pen made from plastic has a carbon footprint even if we can’t see the fossil fuels when we look at the pen.

It’s the same with food, clothes, and other things which we don’t see emissions from – there are emissions released into the atmosphere in the growing of food, the manufacturing of items, and the transporting of goods and products all around the world before they end up in our hands.

Everything has a carbon footprint, and some items have more emissions than others. For example, it’s estimated that:

A short email from phone to phone has a carbon footprint equivalent to around 0.2g of carbon dioxide or CO2 while a single text message is equivalent to around 0.8g of CO2

A mile on a full electric bus in the UK has a footprint equivalent to around 6g of CO2 while 1 mile in an average petrol car has a footprint equivalent to around 530g of CO2

A litre of tap water has a footprint equivalent to 0.36g of CO2 while an average litre bottle of water equates to 480g of CO2

Carbon footprints can also be measured against one another to compare impacts around the world:For example, someone in the United States has an average carbon footprint of around 14 tonnes of carbon per year, whereas in the UK our average of carbon footprint per person is just below 5 tonnes, and in the Central African Republic it is as little as 0.1 tonnes.

Many scientists and activists think there are problems with the idea of a carbon footprint, which can make the global carbon problem quite individual or personal rather than seeing it as a whole world issue that needs whole world solutions.

But, alongside industry and organisations reducing their carbon footprint, it can be a useful tool to reflect on what each of us can do to help make a change.