What is Your Carbon Footprint, and How Can You Reduce It?

You’ve heard the phrase “carbon footprint” before, but have you ever stopped to figure out what, exactly, it is?

Do you know your own household’s carbon footprint?

What is Your Carbon Footprint?

Put simply, your carbon footprint is the total of all your daily activities that emit carbon dioxide. Things like driving your car, heating your home, and doing laundry all contribute to your carbon footprint.

Your carbon footprint matters because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gases can trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. All this trapped heat eventually results in warmer temperatures that can offset the delicate global balance and result in heat waves, air pollution, severe storms, loss of habitat, and more.

By understanding your carbon footprint, you’ll be able to identify areas where your household can make the most significant improvements. If we were to all band together and collectively lower our carbon footprints, there’s no doubt that we would see positive climate changes worldwide.

How to Calculate Your Carbon Footprint

Anything you do that consumes energy or produces waste also contributes to your household’s carbon footprint. There are spreadsheets and calculations you can follow if you want to get really detailed, but in general, it’s much easier to use an online carbon footprint calculator.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a great online calculator that you can access here. They’ll walk you through the entire process, and they divide your entries into three main categories: home energy, transportation, and waste.

After you open the calculator, you’ll enter your zip code and the number of people living in your house. For the “home energy” section, you’ll enter your average utility bills for gas and electricity, any Energy Star appliances you may have, and a few other details. For the “transportation” section, you’ll add the average annual miles you drive for each car in your household, along with that car’s average miles per gallon (mpg). For the “waste” section, you’ll just check all of the items you currently recycle. Glass? Check. Aluminum? Check.

The entire process takes 5 to 10 minutes, and in the end, you’ll be given your household’s average annual carbon emissions in pounds. Divide your total number of pounds by 2,000 to learn how many tons of carbon your family emits per year.

The average annual carbon footprint per person in the U.S. is approximately 16 tons. This is drastically higher than the world average, which is closer to 4 tons per year. To collectively lower carbon emissions, the world average needs to be more like 2 tons per year for each household by 2050. Clearly, we have some work to do!

Fortunately, there are simple steps you can take today to start lowering your carbon footprint, even if you’re on a budget. Here are a few of our favorites:

How to Lower Your Home’s Carbon Footprint

Your home energy use is one of the most significant factors in your carbon footprint. Many of us burn through energy day and night to keep the temperature comfortable and our appliances running. Fortunately, there are some simple changes you can make to lower your carbon footprint at home.

A few things you can do are free. During summer, turn your air conditioner thermostat up by a few degrees. Here in the U.S., we tend to cool our homes to the extreme during summer, but a few degrees can save a considerable amount of energy. For example, do you typically keep your home at 72 degrees Fahrenheit? Try 74, or, dare we say, 75!

Apply the same concept during winter, and turn your heating unit down by a few degrees. This is especially doable at night. Pull an extra blanket out of storage and let your heater rest a bit overnight, too. Those few degrees will add up and make a difference both in your utility bill and in your carbon footprint.

Another free thing you can do today is to adjust the power settings on your laptop or desktop. You can also plug your computer, monitor, printer, and other office equipment into a single power strip, which you flip off at the end of the day.

You can also save energy by occasionally washing your clothes in cold water and drying them via a clothesline or drying rack. This one comes with the bonus of getting to enjoy that crisp, fresh-from-the-line scent of clean linens. Grandma knew what was up!

If you have a bit of money to invest in lowering your home’s carbon footprint, then you can start by swapping out all incandescent light bulbs with ENERGY STAR-certified LED bulbs. At the very least, start doing this gradually as lights throughout your home burn out. According to Energy.gov, LED bulbs use 75% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, and they last 25 times longer!

Speaking of ENERGY STAR, keep this rating in mind when you’re ready to replace or upgrade your appliances, especially your refrigerator and furnace. ENERGY STAR appliances are rated specifically with energy efficiency in mind, and they’re some of the most efficient models available on the market.

Finally, one of the biggest changes you can make to your home’s energy consumption is to switch to solar energy. Solar immediately starts working in the background to reduce your carbon footprint, your electric bills, and your exposure to volatile foreign markets, all while preserving Earth’s precious resources for future generations. Bonus: switching to driving an EV from a conventional car will substantially shrink your carbon footprint, too — especially if you charge up via your home solar.

Learn more about the benefits of solar, including increased home value, here.