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Calcuate your Carbon Footprint

Information about calculating your carbon footprint, including what it is and how it's measured.

What is a carbon footprint?

A carbon footprint is defined as the total amount of greenhouse gases produced directly or indirectly by a person, organisation, event or product and is usually expressed in equivalent tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2e). It is a useful tool to understand the impact of personal or organisational behaviour on global climate change and key to managing and reporting on carbon emissions.

Carbon footprints are often broken down into Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions:

  • Scope 1 – emissions from products, services and other sources under the businesses control e.g. fleet, boilers etc.
  • Scope 2 – indirect emissions from the generation of electricity purchased
  • Scope 3 – indirect emissions as a result of the organisations activities or supply chain and procurement (hardest to calculate)

How to calculate your carbon footprint

There are several free online carbon footprinting tools which businesses can use to calculate the carbon footprint of their organisation for a specific time frame (usually a year). There are online tools available to do this: the Carbon Trust have a calculator for small and medium enterprise (SME).

To calculate the carbon footprint of your business you will need the following information for your chosen reporting year:

  • Fuel consumption
  • Energy consumption
  • Top ups made to air conditioning units

Route to Net Zero Standard: Carbon Trust launches new net-zero certification standard for businesses (edie.net)

Once you’ve calculated your carbon footprint, you’ll have a better idea of how the changes you choose to make are reducing it.

You can also commit your business to the Net-Zero target via the Climate Business Hub.