Eco Comment – Measuring your Climate Footprint

Have you measured your Climate Footprint? If so, were you surprised at the result? I was. I thought I was doing almost all of the right things to be a good environmental citizen only to discover that there was so much more that I could do. I thought I’d share the questions which were asked to complete this process. 

Using the WorldWide Fund (WWF Footprint Calculator) which only uses the beginning of your post code I’m told that my footprint is equal to 9.7 tonnes. The UK average footprint for 2025 is 8.4 tonnes and that my footprint is 115% of the UK average for 2025. I found this somewhat disheartening. How did it work this out? After all, I recycle everything that I can. I walk or take public transport as often as possible. I don’t live in a hothouse. I could go on but decide to take another test. 

I chose Climate Hero, (https://carbon-calculator.climatehero.org) which comes up as a tool from the Earth Day literature. The questions are divided into three sections: housing, travel and consumption. It certainly gets up close and personal in that it wants your name and gender to start.  

• How large is your home? Choose from 1-5+ bedrooms. 
• What kind of residence? These range from detached – mobile home. 
• Which decade was it built in?  
• What is the Then we’re on toheating source? 
• Does it have it’s own electricity generating system? (Solar panels?) 
• Does your household use carbon free electricity? 
• Does your home have air conditioning? 
• Are you actively trying to reduce your electricity consumption?  
• How many adults live in your household? 
• How many children? 
• How many pets? 
• Do you have a second property? 

Then we’re on to travel. 

How many flights do you take per year? Personal and a round trip = two flights. 

• Domestic/short haul (<2hour flights) 

• Medium Haul (2-6hour flights) 

• Long haul ( >6 hour flights) 

• If you have a private jet you are advised to contact them! If not… move on. 

• Do you own or lease a car? 

• What kind of engine does your car have? (Fossil fuel – EV) 

• How many kilometers is the car driven per year for personal use? 

• When was your car built? (Before 2005 – 2025) 

• Size of car? (small – SUV) 

• Are you part of a car sharing scheme? 

• Do you occasionally rent a car? 

• Do you occasionally drive by taxi? 

• How often do you take a ferry? 

• How often do you use public transport? 

• How often do you go by foot or bicycle? 

• Do you own or lease a motorbike/moped or scooter? 

• Do you own or lease a motorboat? 

The last section is consumption which is split into food and shopping. 

• How often do you eat beef or lamb? 

• How often do you et a plant-based meal? 

• Do you consciously choose products that are in season? 

• Do you consciously choose products that are locally sourced? 

• Do you grow your own food? 

• What is your attitude to food waste? (This ranges from I don’t think about it to I do my upmost to avoid it.) 

• What do you do with food waste that still occurs? (general waste or composting?) 

• What is your consumption of palm oil? 

• What best describes your consumption of single use plastic? 

General shopping questions follow… 

• Shopping frequency? (rarely, now and then, I love buying new things) 

• Quality or price? 

• Buying second hand? 

• Regularity of giving away/selling second hand items? 

• Recycling?  

• Do you offset any of your carbon footprint? 

That’s it. The bot then computes your climate footprint and suggests ways in which you might reduce your climate footprint by pledging to improve. It also shows how much it would cost to balance what’s left by supporting climate projects. 

But then it asks you to guess at what you think your footprint is likely to be. Are you a climate villain (> 10ton), are you a consumer (5-10 ton) are you a climate friend (2-5 ton) or are you a climate hero (<2ton). 

I come out as a Climate Friend with a result of 4.4 tonnes CO2e. I note that this is half what was predicted on my postcode alone! I am then given the choice of seeing what I do well or going straight to what I can improve. 

It turns out that my home is 0.9 tonnes, travel is 2.4 tonnes and consumption is 1.1 tonnes. 

Sadly most of what they suggest I do to improve my score is impractical or far too expensive for me to justify. So, I can now request a summary by email or just see my result on the screen. I can see how my result can be modified by my climate pledges and find out how to offset the remaining climate footprint which comes out at only 4p per day. I can do this by spreading the word, I can go climate positive and sponsor solutions to accelerate the path to net zero and am given a choice of projects and how the money will be used.  

To date 1,703,419 people have used Climate Hero and pledged to reduce 3,313,563 ton CO2 per year which is equivalent to removing 2,209,042 diesel cars from our roads.  

How you respond to this Eco Comment is entirely up to you. If you’ve read this far I would say that you’re interested in the environment and your role in helping to live sustainably. The cathedral has to submit it’s own version of a carbon footprint tool every year and the Eco Church survey for the A Rocha award asks us to promote individual and household carbon footprints audits. This audit is quite long and involved. There are shorter ones but this example certainly gave me food for thought and make me consider how I live my life, what I can’t change and what I really should do something about.  

Sue Morgan
Eco Group