Post 3 – Other ways of measuring our carbon footprint

Having shared in Post 1, the Australian version of the carbon footprint calculator from the World Wildlife Fund, I promised to offer some alternatives.  In this post I will write about a calculator that is published by a charitable organisation called Carbon Neutral.  This site offers an option for individuals, businesses or corporations to measure their carbon footprint.  It looks like the primary purpose of the calculator is to let us calculate our total CO₂  emissions so we can purchase a $ value equivalent of ‘carbon offsets‘ (parked).  These offsets are sold by Carbon Neutral to reduce our carbon emissions to a theoretical value of zero.   Carbon Neutral have two versions of their calculator, a standard one and an advanced one.  I tried using both but found the standard one just as useful as the advanced one.  Like the other calculator that I looked at in Post 1, this one requires us to collect a variety of information prior to effectively using it. There is also the option of saving our calculations if we use the advanced calculator, but I had trouble retrieving my data once I had saved it and, having had another try today, I still find that I can’t retrieve my data.

One of the most interesting things about this calculator is it explicitly allows for what they call Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions. I think this is conceptually important. They define Scope 1 emissions as ‘All direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions’, Scope 2 emissions as ‘Indirect GHG emissions from consumption of purchased electricity, heat or steam’ and Scope 3 emissions as ‘Other indirect emissions, such as the extraction and production of purchased materials and fuels and transport-related activities’. When we measure our carbon footprint, I am convinced we should take into account all types of emissions unless we are sure that the emissions have been accounted for elsewhere, possibly via a price on carbon or carbon equivalent (parked) offsets. To apply this conceptualization to our domestic situations, I think Scope 1 emissions as, for example, the sort of emissions that we generate from the rubbish we send to land fill and the wood we burn in our fires; Scope 2 emissions as the electricity etc we use in our homes; and, Scope 3 emissions as the emissions that result from the things we buy such as clothes, white goods, furnishings.

There has been some global debate about emission reductions in various countries and to what extent are they as good as they might seem at first glance.  For example, there has been a lowering of the emissions generated in the United Kingdom, which should be a cause for celebration and congratulations, but it has been identified that at least some of this improvement has been achieved by more manufacturing moving offshore.  So, to understand our emissions, we need to know what we measure, both personally and domestically, as well as nationally and this calculator reminds us of that.

I think this calculator is interesting and a bit of fun but probably not something worth spending too much time on unless you want to purchase offsets.  At first glance, I couldn’t see how I could easily separate my own carbon footprint from that of my household’s and some of the measures seemed to be annual and others weekly, which was confusing.  My inability to retrieve the calculations I did yesterday means that even if I wanted to use it to see how I am improving, I couldn’t do so easily.  So I will continue my search for tools that will allow me to monitor how far along the path I am towards a low carbon life.  What I have learnt from the two calculators is that I need to regularly collect, at least, the following information:

• electricity purchased by kilowatt-hour (kWh) from my electricity bill by quarter. Recording kWh by quarter is particularly important in temperate climates, such as the one I live in, because our electricity usage rises a lot during winter, when we have to heat the house. Of the electricity purchased, I need to record how much is ‘green’ because such energy is from renewable sources. Currently we are only buying 25% green power.  There is a distinction between electricity purchased and used.  We use more electricity than we purchase because we have a small solar system on our roof.  Using the amount we pay for electricity as a proxy measure of our carbon emissions is problematic because we are charged over $1/day for the connection.
• natural gas usage by joules or domestic liquid petroleum gas (LPG), which is what we have, by kilograms (don’t forget to include the BBQ gas bottle).
• kilometers I travel in each of our vehicles by quarter.
• the litres per 100 kilometres used by each of the vehicles.
• plane travel by either hours or distance of the route.
• train and bus travel by kilometers.

I know there is more information that I need to collect and I will progressively identify what it is and the best way to collect it but, measurement is just measurement, it doesn’t achieve anything even though knowing how we are progressing towards a goal can be motivating.  I’ll leave today’s blog by repeating an earlier recommendation: to quickly and cheaply reduce a lot of emissions eat very little or no meat from ruminant animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs because these animals produce the greenhouse gas methane (parked).  I’ll add to that recommendation by suggesting that as much food as possible is bought from local producers who can be found at places like farmers’ markets.  Buying local food means that it has not been transported over a great distance by vehicles that almost certainly use oil based fuels and hence emit carbon dioxide.  The local supermarket might be a local supplier but is not usually a local producer!