Your Footprint. Australia’s Trees. Our Future.
Tips for calculating your organisation’s carbon footprint
Carbon footprint calculations must be done for a specific, retrospective time period (e.g. a historic month, quarter, or year). Choose the calculation period that works best for your business. E.g. “Company A” knows they wants to offset their carbon footprint for the 2022 financial year. Their footprint calculation will include emissions from all business activity from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022.
Accurate calculations are data driven. Depending on your business activities, information such as electricity, fuel and water consumption may be required. Don’t worry, our calculator will guide you through the data you need to collect.
It’s best practice to set a reporting cycle to collect this data (e.g. at the end of every quarter). It can take time to establish this process, but once set up it’s relatively easy. This process can also help identify areas of the business where easy emissions reductions can be made.
To calculate emissions, the data needs to be entered into a carbon calculation tool like our DIY Business Calculator. Becoming carbon neutral is often a journey. Start with the business areas with easily accessible data (e.g. air travel, fuel and electricity). Over time, a road map can be developed to collect the more complicated data. Making a start means you’re taking climate action.
To become carbon neutral, you must purchase carbon offsets equal to your calculated emissions. One offset represents 1 tonne of CO2e being taken out of the atmosphere elsewhere in the economy.
There are different types of offsets. At Carbon Positive Australia we believe the best offsets come from projects that protect and restore native environments in addition to capturing carbon. We provide offsets from our biodiverse reforestation projects.
Carbon neutrality only applies to the period calculated and offset. Remaining carbon neutral it is a continuing cycle of calculating, reducing and offsetting.