Introduction
This Carbon Footprint Calculator helps you find out how much carbon dioxide (CO₂) your life makes each year. Carbon is a gas that warms our planet, so knowing your number is a good first step.
You just fill in some easy facts about your home, your travel, your food, and your trash. The tool adds it all up and shows your total footprint. It also splits the number by group, so you can see where most of your carbon comes from.
The calculator also compares your footprint per person with the 2050 goal.
Use this free tool to learn, plan, and cut your carbon. Small changes can make a big difference for the planet.
How to use our Carbon Footprint Calculator
Fill in your home, travel, food, and waste details. The calculator shows your yearly carbon footprint and how much each part adds.
Pick your language from the language menu so the tool reads in the words you know best.
Choose your units to see results in pounds or metric tons of CO₂e per year.
Enter your household size, which is how many people live in your home.
Type your electricity use in kWh per month. Check your power bill to find this number.
Add your natural gas use in therms per month. Your gas bill shows this.
Enter your heating oil in gallons per year if you use oil to heat your home.
Set the percent of your power that comes from green sources like wind or solar.
Type how many car miles you drive each year.
Enter your car's fuel economy in MPG. Use a higher number for cars that go farther on less gas.
If you drive an electric vehicle, include the electricity you use to charge it in your electricity use.
Enter the passenger miles of every flight your household takes in a year, sorted by flight length: under 300 miles, 300 to 2,299 miles, and 2,300 miles or more.
Enter your household's passenger miles per year by bus, by subway or tram, and by commuter rail.
Pick the usual diet in your household, from high meat (100 g or more a day) down to vegan.
Enter how many pounds of trash you send to the landfill each week.
Enter how many pounds of recycling you put out each week.
Enter how many pounds of food scraps you compost each week.
Click Calculate to see your results, or click Reset to start over.
What Is a Carbon Footprint?
A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases you put into the air. These gases, like carbon dioxide (CO₂), come from things you do every day. They trap heat in the sky and help warm the planet. This calculator measures it in pounds or metric tons of CO₂e each year.
What Adds to Your Footprint?
Many parts of daily life make carbon emissions. This calculator counts four of them:
- Home Energy: The power and gas you use to light, heat, and cool your home.
- Transportation: Driving cars, riding buses or trains, and flying on planes.
- Food & Diet: What you eat. Meat, like beef, makes more carbon than plants do.
- Waste: The trash you send to a landfill, the material you recycle and the food scraps you compost.
Why It Matters
Too much carbon causes climate change, which leads to hotter days, bigger storms, and rising seas. Pathways that hold warming to 1.5 °C imply a much smaller footprint per person by 2050.
How You Can Cut Your Footprint
Small changes add up. You can switch to LED light bulbs, lower your heat in winter, or use green power. You can drive less and take the bus or train more. Eating less meat, wasting less food, and recycling more all help too. Each step makes your footprint smaller and keeps the air cleaner for everyone.
Where the Numbers Come From
Home energy, travel and waste use the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's emission factors. The U.S. average electricity grid emits 771.5 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour.2 Natural gas emits 53.06 kilograms of CO2 per million Btu, and distillate fuel oil No. 2 emits 73.96 kilograms per million Btu at 0.138 million Btu per gallon.2 Motor gasoline emits 8.78 kilograms of CO2 per gallon.2 Air travel emits 0.207, 0.129 and 0.163 kilograms of CO2 per passenger-mile on short, medium and long hauls, and bus, transit rail and commuter rail emit 0.066, 0.093 and 0.133 kilograms per passenger-mile.2 Landfilling mixed household waste emits 0.58 metric tons of CO2e per short ton, recycling mixed recyclables 0.09 and composting food waste 0.11.2 The calculator counts a therm of natural gas as 0.1 million Btu.
Food uses a study of UK diets. Diets of high meat-eaters (100 g of meat or more a day) had emissions of 7.19 kilograms of CO2e a day per 2,000 kcal, medium meat-eaters (50 to 99 g) 5.63, low meat-eaters (under 50 g) 4.67, fish-eaters 3.91, vegetarians 3.81 and vegans 2.89.3 The calculator counts each person in your household at their diet's daily figure for 365 days.