The Green Britain Carbon Footprint Calculator

We’ve launched a new carbon footprint calculator and we’d love you to try it and share it with your friends and family.

Here’s the link: ecotricity.co.uk/carbon-footprint-calculator

This is the first version of our carbon calculator and we’re keen to improve it wherever we can. If you think we can improve something or spot a bug, please let us know.

Why have we created this carbon calculator?

Our carbon footprint calculator is designed to be genuinely accessible, to help everyone understand the best ways to reduce their carbon footprint by answering a few simple questions.

We’re all bombarded with competing opinions about what we should do on an individual level to fight the climate crisis, and the advice we get is often packed with jargon and a whole lot more complicated than it needs to be.

That’s why we’ve created this new, simple carbon footprint calculator. In just a few minutes it will work out how much carbon you’re responsible for each year, tell you what that means and show you how it goes up or down depending on the choices you make.

What makes our carbon calculator different?

We’ve taken a deliberate decision to focus on the three things that make up around 80% of everyone’s carbon footprint – Energy, Transport and Food. The remaining 20%, including the infrastructure we use and the things we buy, is more complicated and harder to change.

So let’s tackle the big things first, the ones that will make the most impact: how we power our homes, how we travel and what we eat.

How can I lower my carbon footprint?

The first step is measuring where you are now and understanding the big contributors to your personal carbon emissions.

Then it’s about choosing what you can change to make the biggest impact.

Some choices are easy – deep green energy, for example – but others can be trickier. Not all of us can afford to buy an electric car right now or to swap out a gas boiler for a heat pump (although we believe sustainable gas from grass is a good alternative).

The UK government could enable more people to do this by taking VAT off low carbon equipment, like solar panels and home insulation - all the stuff that can help us reduce our energy bills and cut carbon.

But while we’re waiting for them to take action, there are other meaningful choices you can make as well as insisting on deep green energy.

Food is one of the biggest causes of global carbon emissions - it’s driving the climate crisis and the extinction of wildlife in parallel. Animal farming in Europe produces more greenhouse gases than all the cars and vans combined.

What you choose to put on your plate either causes that or it doesn’t.

It’s not about food miles - less than 1% of all carbon from food is related to that. It’s what you eat that matters most, not how far it travelled.

The simple truth is that cutting your carbon emissions from food is about eating fewer animals. It’s a shift of mindset but one that will help fight the climate crisis, save you money and make you healthier.