Now that we’ve doubled our household members, I want to calculate my family’s carbon footprint . As promised, I’m planning to test out several calculators to make sure that I’m getting an accurate baseline to track our progress.

The first is the EPA’s Household Emissions Calculator , here are the results:


As described on the page, it was pretty quick and only took me about 15 minutes once my energy bill averages were on hand. It was really intuitive and seemed to cover all the household basics. It included our house size, number of family members, gas/electricity bills, car miles and mpg, and recycling habits. According to the calculator our household emits an average of 1,021 pounds of CO2 per person, while the average American emits 20,750.  Yet, it seemed too good to be true, and based on the info I provided it just doesn’t compute.

The calculator automatically identifies that ways for you to reduce your footprint and estimates how much money and emissions you would save per green action. In fact, when I promised to do every action suggested, it calculated that we would have negative annual carbon emissions. We may try to live green, but that’s ludicrous. Talk about bursting my green bubble! My family is a long way from living a net-zero lifestyle, certainly a trek from the off-the-grid cabin where I first grew up.

However each energy savings step was pretty interesting. It calculated that if we replaced our energy hog of a refrigerator we could save $51 annually, 479 pounds of CO2, and reduce our total emissions by 47%. If I were to manage hang drying half of our laundry we could save $40 a year, 375 pounds of CO2 and reduce our total emissions by 37%. I couldn’t think of hang drying our clothes until our Girly is potty trained from her cloth diapers (I’m barely managing to get the ironing done as it is!) But it is very helpful to see specific steps and the expected results from each actions, it makes them as simple to take as they really can be.

So, while not entirely discouraging, I’m glad that I set out with the plan to test various online calculators, hopefully we’ll find the best of all calculators. 

Have you used this carbon calculator and get accurate results?
Did it help your household habits?


~*~*~*~*~*~
Sustainable Family Finances 
The story of a family creating an abundant and sustainable life.