dioxide) is associated with your daily activities. By “measure” we really
mean “get a sense of”, because, well as Jacqueline Ronson puts it
Try to imagine, if you will, the carbon footprint of a single steak —
all the resources that went into growing the feed for the cow, all
that methane from its farts, the processing and transportation, the
cooking. Now imagine repeating that process for not just one
steak, but every resource you consume in a year — your food,
home energy, transportation, goods, services, even Snapchat. It’s
impossible. …. Carbon footprint calculators don’t exist to be accu-
rate. They exist to help people get a sense of which daily activities
consume the most global resources, and provide suggestions on
how to do your part to fight climate change. https://
www.inverse.com/article/23122-best-carbon-footprint-calculators
The carbon footprint calculator we are using for the Carbon Action Pro-
ject is the Australian Greenhouse Calculator (AGC) developed by EPA
Victoria. https://apps.epa.vic.gov.au/AGC/home.html The AGC calcu-
lates your household’s greenhouse gas emissions for a year. It takes in-
to account five main areas: transport, residential energy, food, consum-
er goods, and waste, with 11 categories in all. Emissions are calculated
with each input so you can see how changing your behaviour (driving
fewer km’s, eating less meat) change your footprint.
One reason for choosing the AGC, besides it being interactive and easy
to use, is that it is based on Australian data (rather than UK or US, for
example), which means your emissions are compared to an average
Australian home and an ideal Australian ‘green home’ so you get a real-
istic idea of where you stand. Another reason is that it has options for
both a “Quick” calculation (which takes about 15 minutes) and a
“Detailed” calculation where you can see and make changes to the vari-
ables used in the calculation.
Although the “Quick” option requires fewer numerical inputs, as it makes
assumptions about what is typical for car usage, types of food, etc, it
does require estimates of what you spend shopping for food, consumer
goods, etc. So, it might be best to keep your receipts for a couple of
weeks before starting the calculation. With both options, you can see
what inputs are required without having to enter anything – another ad-
vantage of this calculator – and you can save your calculation at any
time.
When you complete the inputs, you get a visual breakdown of your car-
bon footprint, making it easy to see which life-style category is responsi-
ble for the most emissions. A report (i.e. table) with the numerical values
is also produced. Here’s what the graphical output looks like:
Carbon Action Project
8
1 March 2020