calculate your footprint

Our calculator is a free tool that allows you to calculate and understand your personal carbon footprint. The calculator is broken down into six main categories (Travel, Energy, Water, Transport, Food & Drinks, and Waste). You can choose to include any or all of these categories. By inputting data about your lifestyle and resource consumption, the calculator will determine the amount of greenhouse gas emissions (including carbon dioxide) you have produced. The calculator is a retrospective tool in that it looks at a past period – you can choose to answer for a 1 month, 3 months or 12 month period. It provides facts, tips, and practical steps to help you reduce and offset your footprint.

5 to 10 minutes and a desktop or mobile device with an internet connection. For the most accurate calculation, we recommend using your personal source data (e.g. electricity bills, water bills, kilometres travelled). If you don’t have this data or are looking for a fast calculation, we have included relevant state and Australian averages wherever possible – look out for the “Use Average” buttons.

Your carbon footprint is calculated retrospectively based on your lifestyle and resource consumption for a specific period. You can choose to calculate your carbon footprint for a past month, 3 months or year.

Wherever possible, the calculator uses emissions factors published by the Australian Federal Government and data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Data is updated annually in line with the latest data releases. To find out more about specific calculations, check out the “How Did We Calculate This?” section in the calculator footer.

The average Australian household (2.6 people)has an annual carbon footprint of approximately 15-20 tonnes of CO2e. According to the UN, to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050 we must limit our per-person emissions to 2 tonnes CO2e per year. That means if you have a family of 4, for example, you should be aiming for 8 tonnes CO2e per year.

You can calculate your footprint for specific travel events like a road trip, flight, or cruise using our Carbon Footprint Calculator. Select any time period and enter your data as usual.

If you would like to calculate the footprint of an event like a wedding, party or music festival, please contact us at community@carbonpositiveaustralia.org.au and we will be able to assist you.

Yes, to an extent. The factors that contribute to the carbon footprint of a small business can be similar to that of a household. If your business is predominantly office-based, has less than 10 employees and does not manufacture and/or import or export goods, our calculator should fit your needs.

If your business is more complicated than this, we encourage you to contact us at community@carbonpositiveaustralia.org.au so we can assist you with your calculation.

If your residence has solar panels installed please enter your Total Imported kWh for the period in the electricity section of the calculator. This figure represents the electricity you have consumed from the grid and does not include the clean energy consumed from your home solar system. You can learn more about our approach to accounting for solar panels in the “How Did We Calculate This?” section in the calculator footer.

Electric vehicles are not powered by liquid fuels and as such do not directly produce carbon emissions. To account for the emissions from charging your electric vehicle, make sure you complete the electricity section of the calculator.

If you charged your vehicle at home, the electricity consumption will be included in your total kWh consumption (found on your electricity bill). If you have solar panels, see the previous FAQ to find out how to account for this.

If you charged your vehicle outside the home, you will need to consider whether this was from a renewable source (e.g. a solar charging station) or non-renewable (e.g. at a friend’s house who uses grid electricity). If you charged your car from a non-renewable energy source, you should include the kWh consumption in the electricity section of the calculator.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to this. The simplest way is to divide the consumption value for each utility by the number of people occupying your house to determine your “share”. For example, if your total electricity consumption for the period was 10,000 kWh and there are 4 people in your household (including you), your “share” is 2,500 kWh.

To complete the water section of the calculator you will need to know your water consumption for the period in kL. Your property manager may be able to provide this information, otherwise, we suggest using the relevant state average, adjusting as appropriate. 

To calculate emissions from Food & Drinks, our calculator requires you to enter your weekly spend on groceries, dining out and take away. If you grow your own fruit and/or vegetables you should naturally see a reduction in your weekly food spend (as you no longer have to buy this from the shops). Assuming your consumption of other Food & Drink categories remains the same, growing your own food will reduce your weekly spend, and in turn your carbon footprint.

The emissions from walking, running, skating, and cycling are essentially zero, therefore using these as modes of transport is a great way to lower your carbon footprint. You only need to enter data for transport methods like cars, taxis, planes, buses and trains in your carbon footprint calculation.

The process of creating and transporting clothes, cosmetics, appliances, and other household items creates carbon emissions. These are known as “embodied emissions”.

Embodied emissions are difficult to quantify as there are many variables at play (e.g. what material was used? what was the intensity of the production process? how far did it travel to reach you?).

At the moment, there are very few reputable sources for embodied emissions factors. This is likely to improve over time as businesses and consumers are more aware of their carbon footprint, however for now our calculator does not include these emissions.

The best thing you can do to reduce your footprint from these items is to reduce, re-use and recycle. Before you make a new purchase, consider whether you could borrow from a family member, friend or neighbour. If not, could you find it second-hand? Buy local to reduce transportation emissions and support companies that implement sustainable and ethical practices.

The calculator is full of tips and practical steps to help lower your footprint. For more, sign up to our newsletter here.

Yes! Create an account here to save your calculations to track your progress over time.

Once you have completed your calculation, you have the option to offset your footprint for the period. It costs $18 to offset 1 tonne of CO2e which means the average Australian household could offset their entire yearly emissions for less than $300.

Your offsets help to fund our range of high quality, native restoration projects. Our planting projects not only sequester carbon but also restore Australia’s habitat and natural biodiversity. Where possible, our projects follow methodologies developed by the Australian Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF). Several of our projects are also registered with the ERF.

Remember, you can always choose to offset over time by splitting your payment into instalments – some action is better than none.

In most cases, yes! Carbon Positive Australia is a registered charity with deductible gift recipient status. Your offsets support our native revegetation projects and contributions over $2 are tax deductible.

If you are donating on behalf of a business, it may be a little more complicated and we recommend contacting us at community@carbonpositiveaustralia.org.au or on 1300 857 970.

We have a range of quick offsets available here. These offsets have been calculated using averages for a range of activities like electricity use, flights and vehicle use.