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| - For Transition Towns, 10:10, & London Low Carbon Communities Network To calculate your individual carbon footprint Version 1 November 2009 by Edward Hill of Transition Westcombe Comments & suggestions to edhill (at) glartists.com In the UK the average personal, non-work carbon footprint which is under our direct control through our consumption is about 12800 Kgs of CO2 per year (G) The 10:10 campaign is to achieve a 10% cut in carbon emissions by the end of 2010. This requires a personal reduction of about 1280 Kgs per year The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan plots how the UK will meet the 34% cut in emissions on 1990 levels by 2020. This requires a personal reduction of about 4300 Kgs CO2 per year The London Plan calls for 60% cuts in CO2 by 2025, a personal reduction of 7680 Kgs CO2 / yr The UK government has signed up to 80% cut in emissions by 2050. It has been calculated we need to reduce to a personal carbon footprint of about 2000 Kgs CO2 / yr (RS) . Read footnotes for extra guidance Electricity (1), units are kWh/year/person, multiply your total by 0.6 to get your total in Kgs CO2 Gas (1), units are kWh/year/person, multiply by 0.2 to get your total in Kgs CO2 Water (2), unmetred, add 300 Kgs CO2 Petrol (3), units are litres/year/person, and multiply your total by 2.3 for your total in Kgs CO2 Bus & Train, units are miles/year, and multiply by 0.1 for your total in Kgs CO2 Air Travel (4), units are miles/year, and multiply by 0.5 for your total in Kgs CO2 Food (5), mixed diet, add 2530 Kgs CO2 Consumables (6), average consumption, add 3400 Kgs CO2 Add up all the above for your Total Individual Carbon Footprint in Kgs CO2 Offset your total carbon footprint minus a personal allowance of 2000 Kgs by supporting a tree planting organization such as the Woodland Trust. Pay £8.00 per 1000 Kgs CO2 Footnotes for the Transition Carbon Calculator: (1) Enter your total per person, so divide your house’s electricity / gas annual amount in kilowatt hours by the number of people in the house. (2) If your water is metred, then enter your total per person per year, & multiply by 3.6 If your water is not metered, enter average figure of 300 Kgs CO2 per person. (3) To obtain your car’s litre/year figure from your milometer, divide the total year’s mileage by the Miles Per Gallon rating of your car and multiply by 4.5. If your car runs on diesel add 10% to the CO2 figure that you reach (4) Air Miles calculator for most destinations can be found on www.nef.org.uk This air miles figure includes the extra effect of leaving NOx and soot in the high atmosphere. For long-haul flights reduce the multiplier to 0.3 (5) Food: It’s difficult to calculate the emissions caused by growing, transporting and selling the food that each of us buys. The ‘mixed diet’ is an average UK diet of 38% animal-based food. If you eat mostly vegetarian, unprocessed, small appetite, no air freight, seasonal produce then enter 1000. If you eat lot of red meat or hard cheese, highly processed food, and out-of-season or air-freighted goods enter 4000. Able to subtract? See carbon savings below (6) Consumables / goods. This is an average figure for Kgs CO2 . It includes: Home newspapers/books/paper average 200 (range from 0 to 790), Clothes/shoes/fabrics average 330 (range 0 to 1300) Gadgets/ electronic & electrical appliances average 930 (range 0 to 2900), Other shopping average 1940 (range 0 to 7000) An above average figure is 5 tons CO2 A below average figure is 2.4 tons CO2 A much below average figure is 1.4 tonnes CO2 (6) Miscellaneous. For slow ferries multiply km travelled by 0.1, for fast ferries by 0.5, and for liners by 0.7 (7) Offset by tree planting. Each person in theory can safely produce 2000 Kgs of C . While you are reducing your carbon footprint towards that you can contribute funds to tree planting organizations such as the Woodland Trust . For most impact choose organisations where the trees are maintained and looked after by local volunteers from the community such as the Green Light Trust. The government’s Low Carbon Transition Plan states that if 10,000 hectares of new woodland are planted every year, the resulting new trees will lock away a staggering 50 million tonnes of carbon by 2050, making a very real contribution to the U.K’s carbon reduction targets. An Excel 12.1.9 spreadsheet version of this Transition Carbon Calculator is also available by emailing edhill (at) glartists.com
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