What is a carbon footprint?

So you’ve been hearing about climate change and are starting on a personal sustainability journey… but you keep hearing about carbon and carbon footprints. But what on Earth is a carbon footprint?!

A carbon footprint is the sum of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) released into the atmosphere due to your activities or your purchases. Have you recently bought a lollipop? Watched Netflix? Met up with a friend for a coffee? Congrats, you’ve just added a few kilograms to your carbon footprint!

A carbon footprint is usually measured in tonnes of CO2 emitted in a year. The average varies depending on a country – in Europe it’s a range of 5-10 tonnes, but Americans and Aussies create as much as 16 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year!

But how much is a tonne of CO2?

One tonne is the same as a return flight from Paris to New York, driving 6000 kilometres by car or producing 13 iPhones.

You can calculate your own carbon footprint using our simple calculator, here. No calculator is a perfect measure, but it will give you a rough idea on how big your carbon footprint is.

How does this fit into the carbon footprint of buying a lollipop?

Every activity you do requires energy for manufacturing, during consumption and transportation, and burning fossil fuels is one of the primary sources of greenhouse gases. The carbon footprint of a lollipop tells us about the environmental impact this candy is having.

 Let’s count together:

You take a car to get to a shop – you burn fuel. But so does a shop assistant selling you a candy, who needs to commute – and so do truck drivers, bringing the lollipops from the factory.

Now, we mustn’t forget about the factory where the candy was made, and things like energy needed to keep the shop running and some heating in winter, so that it stays warm when you visit it. Sounds like a long list for such a tiny candy, right?

All up, a kilo of lollipops (about 86 candies!) has a carbon footprint of 1.3 kg. And with several billions of them made each year, that has a signficiant impact on the environment.

How can I reduce my carbon footprint?

You can’t erase the greenhouse gases your actions create, but you can try to make your footprint smaller by living responsibly.

An Environmental Research Letters study from 2007 found that the best way to mitigate your carbon footprint is to have one child less. For those of you, who don’t want to get rid of your little ones, we prepared other ideas:

• A car-free life can save you over two tonnes of CO2 per year
• Avoid air travel – one trans-Atlantic flight is equal to about 1 tonne of CO2
• Buying carbon offsets that will mitigate your actions!

Learn more about how to reduce

What is a carbon offset?

A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of CO2 made in order to compensate for emissions made elsewhere. They are awarded to projects that wouldn’t otherwise exist – most commonly projects focusing on renewable energy, reforestation or destruction of industrial pollutants.

Carbon offsets are a great way to reduce your impact on the climate while you work on reducing your carbon footprint.

So what’s the fuss about?

The climate is warming because of our carbon footprints. The scientists have done the math for us. If we want the temperature on Earth to stay within 2 °C, a carbon footprint of one person must be limited by 2050 to 2 tonnes per year.

It sounds complicated, right? Don’t let it stand in the way of starting your sustainability journey. The takeaway here is that we need to work on reducing our carbon footprint, and while we work on reduction, one of the effective tools are carbon offsets.

We can change the world. We are the change.

Let’s start today.