How To Calculate Your Carbon Footprint: What’s Your Impact?

Understanding your impact on the environment can be eye-opening, and one of the most effective ways to do this is by conducting a carbon footprint calculation. When you calculate your carbon footprint, you’re essentially measuring the total greenhouse gasses (GHGs) you produce from everyday activities like driving, eating, and energy consumption. This environmental footprint reflects the cumulative effect of your lifestyle on the planet, helping you see areas where you can make more sustainable choices.

A carbon footprint calculation takes into account several factors, including transportation, home energy use, and food choices. We wanted to go a step further and walk through the total environmental impact that one person has on an average day. The idea isn’t to make you feel bad about your environmental footprint—it’s to make you more aware and informed so you can take steps toward positive change.

Whether you’re using a carbon footprint calculator or simply reflecting on your habits, understanding your environmental footprint is the first step toward making meaningful changes. From reducing waste to opting for renewable energy sources, each action can help reduce your overall carbon emissions and leave a positive impact on the environment.

The Environmental Impact of One Person in One Day

1. Morning Routine: Hygiene and Personal Care

Water Usage:
Most people start their day by showering, brushing their teeth, and using the toilet. A standard shower head uses about 2.5 gallons of water per minute, meaning a 10-minute shower consumes 25 gallons of water.

If you brush your teeth with the water running, you could waste 2-3 gallons during the process. Add toilet flushes (about 1.6-4 gallons per flush, depending on the toilet), and you’ve already used a significant amount of water before leaving the house.

Excessive water usage depletes freshwater resources, especially in areas prone to drought. The energy required to pump, treat, and heat water contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.

Personal Care Products:
Many people use shampoo, body wash, and toothpaste as part of their routine. These products often come in plastic packaging, and their ingredients (like microbeads, parabens, and sulfates) may wash down the drain and contribute to water pollution.

Plastics contribute to landfills and ocean pollution. Harmful chemicals in personal care products can contaminate waterways, affecting marine life and ecosystems.

2. Commuting: Carbon Footprint of Transportation

Car Commute:
Let’s assume the average person drives 20 miles round trip for their daily commute. A typical gasoline-powered car emits approximately 404 grams of CO2 per mile, meaning this commute generates around 8,080 grams (8 kg) of CO2 daily. If public transportation or biking is an option, the carbon footprint could be significantly reduced.

Transportation is a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change. Fuel consumption also leads to air pollution, which affects human health and the environment.

3. Meals: Food Production and Waste

Breakfast Choices:
If someone grabs a coffee and a breakfast sandwich on their way to work, the environmental impact starts with the coffee cup (which may not be recyclable due to its plastic lining) and extends to the food itself. For example, a bacon-egg sandwich involves carbon-intensive pork production, while producing eggs and bread also requires significant resources like water and feed.

Animal agriculture, particularly beef and pork, is a major contributor to methane emissions, deforestation, and water consumption. Coffee production also has environmental impacts related to water usage and pesticide application.

Lunch:
A typical fast food or cafeteria lunch often involves single-use plastics, such as packaging, utensils, and straws. If it includes meat (especially beef or pork), the carbon footprint is higher compared to a plant-based meal. Beef, for example, has a carbon footprint of 60 kg CO2 per kg produced, while plant-based proteins like beans are far lower.

Single-use plastics contribute to landfill waste and ocean pollution. Food waste, if leftovers aren’t consumed, adds to methane emissions in landfills.

Snacks and Drinks:
Grabbing a bottled water, soda, or a snack wrapped in plastic adds to your daily plastic footprint. Plastic bottles take hundreds of years to decompose, and only a small percentage are recycled.

The production and disposal of plastic packaging contribute to both marine and land pollution. Energy is also used to produce, package, and transport these items, increasing your carbon footprint.

4. Office or Workday Habits: Energy and Waste

Electricity Usage:
If you work in an office or from home, your daily activities likely include using a computer, phone, and other electronics. Leaving devices plugged in or lights on unnecessarily adds to energy consumption. Even with energy-efficient appliances, the average person consumes 877 kWh of electricity annually at work, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions depending on the energy source (coal, natural gas, etc.).

Energy consumption from non-renewable sources releases CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Paper and Office Supplies:
Printing documents, using single-use coffee cups, and discarding paper without recycling adds to waste. An estimated 4 million tons of copy paper are used annually in the U.S. alone, and a significant portion of it isn’t recycled.

Paper production is resource-intensive, requiring water, trees, and energy. Improper disposal of office waste, particularly plastics and paper, adds to landfills and contributes to deforestation.

5. Dinner: Impact of Food Choices and Packaging

Food Choices:
A home-cooked meal often includes ingredients packaged in plastic or aluminum, contributing to household waste. If the dinner includes meat, dairy, or imported foods, the carbon footprint is higher compared to a plant-based, local meal.

Meat and dairy production have some of the highest environmental costs in terms of land, water, and emissions. Packaging waste, especially plastic, adds to pollution and landfill issues.

6. Evening Routine: Leisure, Waste, and Energy

Television and Streaming:
Watching TV or streaming content on your device may seem like a low-impact activity, but the energy consumed by data centers powering the internet adds up. It’s estimated that streaming just one hour of video produces 55 grams of CO2.

Energy consumption from streaming services, data centers, and electronic devices indirectly contributes to carbon emissions.

Waste Disposal:
By the end of the day, the average person has generated 4.9 pounds of trash, much of which could have been avoided or recycled. This includes food scraps, packaging, and disposable products used throughout the day.

Waste that isn’t recycled contributes to overflowing landfills, where it decomposes and releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Proper waste disposal, including composting and recycling, can mitigate some of these impacts.

A Day in the Life: How to Calculate Your Carbon Footprint

By the time the day is over, an individual has made countless choices that impact the environment—some without even realizing it. From water usage and energy consumption to the food we eat and waste we produce, the average person contributes to habitat destruction, greenhouse gas emissions, and pollution.

However, the goal isn’t to feel discouraged. Instead, this awareness empowers each of us to make more eco-friendly choices, whether it’s by reducing plastic waste, conserving energy, eating plant-based meals, or supporting sustainable brands. Small changes in our daily habits can collectively lead to a much larger, positive impact on the environment. Next up, we’ll look at how you can calculate your carbon footprint to better understand your impact.

Calculate Your Carbon Footprint: Daily Activities

Now, let’s break down each of these activities into measurable units of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to calculate your carbon footprint.

1. Transportation 

• Activity: Commuting via car, public transportation, or bicycle.
• Carbon Emissions: Cars emit approximately 404 grams of CO2 per mile. If you commute 20 miles round trip in a gasoline-powered car, you’d emit around 8 kg of CO2 per day.

2. Electricity Usage 

• Activity: Using lights, appliances, computers, etc.
• Carbon Emissions: The average carbon emissions for electricity usage in the U.S. is about 0.92 pounds of CO2 per kWh (this can vary depending on the energy mix in your region). If you use 30 kWh per day, your daily emissions from electricity are around 12.5 kg of CO2.

3. Water Usage 

• Activity: Showering, brushing teeth, washing dishes.
• Carbon Emissions: The carbon footprint of water usage comes primarily from the energy used to heat the water and pump it to your home. The average carbon emissions for heating water is 0.18 kg of CO2 per gallon. For a 10-minute shower using 25 gallons of hot water, the emissions would be 4.5 kg of CO2.

4. Food Choices 

• Activity: Eating meat, dairy, or plant-based foods.
• Carbon Emissions: Beef has a footprint of 60 kg CO2 per kg of beef consumed. Plant-based meals, like vegetables or grains, have significantly lower emissions (around 2-3 kg CO2 per kg). If you eat 1.1 lbs of beef per day, you generate around 30 kg of CO2. If you eat mostly plant-based, your daily food footprint may be around 3-5 kg CO2.

5. Waste Production (Plastics and Food Waste)

• Activity: Producing trash and food waste.
• Carbon Emissions: The carbon footprint of waste can vary. Plastic waste contributes around 6 kg of CO2 per kilogram of plastic produced Food waste that ends up in landfills releases methane, with a carbon equivalent of 0.1 kg CO2 per kg of food wasted.

6. Streaming and Data Usage

• Activity: Streaming video content, using cloud services.
• Carbon Emissions: Streaming for one hour is estimated to produce 55 grams of CO2. For a daily streaming habit of 3 hours, your emissions would be around 0.165 kg of CO2.

According to current climate science, a “healthy” daily carbon footprint for an individual should ideally be around 2.7 kg of CO2. So, let’s pretend you’re the individual in our example. If we calculate your carbon footprint based on the information above, which likely seems to be a “normal” or “average” day to most, the carbon footprint is 35.21 kg of CO2! You can see how easy it is for your carbon footprint to expand immensely without even realizing it. 

Best Carbon Footprint Calculators

You can use free online calculators to streamline the process of calculating your carbon footprint (because, honestly, who wants to do all that math by hand?) Some tools require you to input your energy usage, transportation habits, food consumption, and waste production. They use this information to calculate your total carbon emissions. A few popular calculators include:

• EPA’s Carbon Footprint Calculator (U.S.-based)
• The Nature Conservancy’s Carbon Footprint Calculator
• WWF Footprint Calculator

By using these resources, you can get a more accurate estimate of your daily and annual carbon footprint. Once you have your total, you can explore ways to reduce it by opting for sustainable choices, reducing energy consumption, or minimizing waste.

Calculate Your Carbon Footprint to Reduce Your Environmental Impact

Reducing your environmental footprint is easier than you might think. Small, consistent changes in your daily habits can add up to a significant reduction in carbon emissions, waste, and overall resource consumption. To learn more, check out: How to Live a Sustainable Life: Small Changes, Big Impact

We all live here, so let’s take care of this place.