emissions 101: your footprint
If understanding your carbon footprint feels intimidating, we see you. The language and information around these topics can feel difficult to access or ascertain - and therefore, can stop people in their important exploration.
To fully understand the impact you have on the world in terms of how you consume, travel and live - it starts with the understanding that just starting somewhere is the most important step of all.
Exacting emissions measurement is difficult to grasp on an individual level as a common methodology is measuring in terms of Scope 1, 2 or 3 emissions - which are most often defined as it relates to a corporation or organization.
everything + everyone has a supply chain
Everything we buy uses energy and resources to produce + distribute. Think of it this way: we all have a personal “supply chain,” for everything we purchase or consume, it starts at point A with material extraction or sourcing, gets produced and eventually, gets to you. Finally, if this item isn’t endlessly reusable or useful, in a linear economy, it must be disposed of (commonly referred to as “end of life-cycle”).
The biggest two areas of emissions in our lives are directly related to fossil fuel usage. Fossil fuels power traditional energy in our homes as well as the engine in a traditional gas or diesel powered vehicle. Green energy at home and electrification of your modes of transportation will make the biggest impacts on your personal footprint, without question.
To further estimate your personal footprint based on your purchases, tech company Joro has created a proprietary software - “Carbonizer,” which combines datasets on the carbon intensity of production, transportation, and end-of-life use on over 300 unique spending categories - and computes your footprint using localized information about you, your consumption and lifestyle (aka your banking + credit cards).
If you go carbon neutral with Joro, as we have chosen to do - they charge 17% to cover the costs of data management, labor and cost of doing business, which we pay to support their mission to empower individuals to take their personal emissions into their own hands.
Other tools you can use to figure out your personal carbon footprint include:
EPA’s Household Carbon Footprint Calculator
The Nature Conservancy’s Carbon Footprint Calculator
Terrapass Individual Carbon Footprint Calculator
Cool Climate Network Calculator
According to the current science, we have approximately a 10 year window to make the changes necessary to course correct our path. It’s all of our duties’ to step up to the collective challenge.
Net Zero by 2030 is not just a tagline or corporate promise, it’s a critical scientific + social requirement for humanity’s future. The best news: there is no shortage of opportunity to begin your positive impact.
