Personal Carbon Footprint Calculator
Enter what your household uses and how you travel and eat. The calculator turns it into tons of CO2 equivalent per year, shows which part is biggest, compares you with the average for your country and the 1.5 °C target, and lists the changes that would cut the most. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
Free · No sign-up
How to use it
- Choose your country and how many people live with you.
- Copy electricity and gas use from your bills, per month or per year.
- Add your yearly driving, a normal week of public transport and your flights.
- Pick your diet, then read the total, the breakdown and the biggest cuts.
Why use this tool
Country electricity mix
Each kWh is counted with your country's 2024 grid intensity, from 39 g in Switzerland to over 670 g in India.
Flights done properly
Short flights cost more per mile, premium cabins take more space, and contrail warming can be included.
Food counts
Six diets from heavy meat to vegan, using published per-day footprints.
Fair comparison
Your total next to your country's average, the world average and the 2.5 t lifestyle target for 2030.
Ideas ranked by impact
See which change saves the most for you: a heat pump, an EV, one flight fewer or a diet shift.
Private
The calculation runs in your browser. Your bills and habits are not sent anywhere.
What is a carbon footprint?
A personal carbon footprint is the greenhouse gas released because of what you do in a year: the electricity and gas your home uses, the fuel your car burns, the flights you take and the food you eat. Other gases such as methane from cattle are converted to the warming effect of CO2, so the result is in tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e).
The average American is responsible for about 14 tons of fossil CO2 a year from the national economy, roughly three times the world average of 4.7 tons. To keep warming to 1.5 °C, lifestyle footprints need to fall to around 2.5 tons per person by 2030.
Typical numbers behind the calculator
These are the factors the calculator uses. They come from the US EPA, the UK government's greenhouse gas conversion factors, Ember's electricity data and peer-reviewed diet studies.
| Activity | Emissions |
|---|---|
| 1 gallon of gasoline burned | 8.7 kg CO2 |
| 1 gallon of diesel | 10.1 kg CO2 |
| 1 therm of natural gas | 5.4 kg CO2 |
| 1 kWh of US grid electricity | 0.38 kg CO2e |
| New York to London and back, economy | about 1.3 t CO2e |
| Average meat eater's diet for a year | about 2.1 t CO2e |
| Vegan diet for a year | about 1.1 t CO2e |
Why flights and driving dominate many footprints
Driving 12,000 miles a year in a car that gets 25 mpg burns 480 gallons of gasoline, about 4.2 tons of CO2. One return flight across the Atlantic adds about 1.3 tons in economy, and nearly three times that in business class because the seat takes up more of the plane.
Contrails and nitrogen oxides released at cruising altitude trap extra heat, so most climate researchers multiply flight CO2 by around 1.7 to 2. The calculator includes this by default; untick the box to see CO2 alone.
How to cut your carbon footprint
- Heating: a heat pump uses about a third of the energy of a gas furnace for the same heat.
- Electricity: a green tariff or rooftop solar takes most of this line close to zero.
- Driving: an electric car on the US grid emits about a third as much per mile as a gasoline car, less as the grid gets cleaner.
- Flights: one long-haul trip can outweigh a year of careful driving, so flying less has the biggest single effect for frequent flyers.
- Food: eating red meat a few times a week instead of daily saves more than buying local.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average carbon footprint per person?
World fossil CO2 emissions are about 4.7 tons per person a year. The United States averages about 14 tons, Germany about 7, China about 8.7 and India about 2.2.
What is a good carbon footprint?
Studies of 1.5 °C pathways put a sustainable lifestyle footprint at about 2.5 tons of CO2e per person by 2030 and around 0.7 tons by 2050. Anything below your country's average is a good start.
How is the carbon footprint of a flight calculated?
Distance flown times an emission factor per passenger-mile, adjusted for the cabin class. Short flights have a higher factor because take-off burns a lot of fuel. The calculator also adds the extra warming from contrails unless you switch it off.
Why does my country change the result?
Electricity is counted with your country's grid mix. A kWh in France, mostly nuclear, causes about a tenth of the emissions of a kWh in the US and a sixteenth of one in India.
Does the calculator include shopping and services?
No. It covers the parts you can measure from bills and travel: home energy, transport and food. Clothes, electronics and services usually add 1 to 3 tons more in high-income countries.
How many trees offset one ton of CO2?
A mature tree absorbs roughly 22 kg of CO2 a year, so about 45 trees growing for a full year take up one ton. Cutting emissions is much faster than planting enough trees.
How to calculate your carbon footprint
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