A carbon footprint visualizer for selected weekly activities and illustrative comparisons
Enter this week's miles, kWh and meals on the left to see a partial CO₂e subtotal, an A–D reference band and tree and phone-charge comparisons on the right. The sea-ice figure is a hypothetical CO₂ illustration, not a prediction of personal ice loss.
Subtotal ranges relative to about 48.1 kgCO₂e/week: A ≤1x · B >1–2x · C >2–4x · D >4x. These are not lifestyle ratings.
- Repeated for 52 weeks
- — This week's subtotal × 52, not an actual annual record.
- 1.5°C reference ratio
- — The whole-lifestyle budget is about 48.1 kgCO₂e/week. Different scope; not a compliance measure.
- US CO₂ reference ratio
- — A numerical ratio of partial CO₂e to consumption-based CO₂ per person. Coverage and gas basis differ.
- Biggest category
- — The largest of the four categories.
- Tree illustration (annual subtotal; 10-year seedlings)
- — 60.5 kgCO₂ per urban seedling grown 10 years (US EPA)
- September Arctic ice (CO₂-only illustration, annual)
- — Assumes the annual subtotal is CO₂. The study relates cumulative CO₂ to 3 m² per tonne, not personal ice loss (Notz & Stroeve, Science 2016).
- Smartphone charges, this week
- — 0.019 kWh per charge × the grid factor above
- Gasoline-car miles, this week
- — Average gasoline car 0.260 kgCO₂e/mile (DEFRA 2026)
This is a partial CO₂e subtotal for selected transport, home energy, meat/fish and deliveries. Other food, goods and services are omitted. A–D are subtotal ranges, not lifestyle ratings. The 1.5°C lifestyle budget and national CO₂ statistic cover different scopes, so they are not direct comparisons or measures of target compliance. Sea-ice area is a hypothetical CO₂-only illustration, not the area you will physically melt.
ready to use.
- Visible firstKeep the input and result positions clear.
- Results firstPut the main number up front and keep the process secondary.
- Less to askNo sign-up or extra information before using the tool.
How to use the carbon footprint visualizer
Enter 200 miles in the car, 200 kWh of electricity and a couple of beef meals to estimate the emissions associated with those activities. The result is a partial subtotal in CO₂e: greenhouse gases expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent, not a measured mass of CO₂ alone. Tree and phone-charge comparisons help show its scale. The sea-ice illustration uses the same numerical mass as hypothetical CO₂; it does not predict how much ice your activities remove.
Every number used in the translation is printed on the page. Vehicle and transit factors come from the UK government's 2026 conversion factors, meat and fish from a 2018 Science paper, seedlings and phone charges from the US EPA, sea ice from a 2016 Science paper. The grid emission factor differs more than fourfold between countries, so it is an input rather than a hidden constant: the US default of 0.384 kgCO₂e/kWh can be overwritten with your utility's published figure or your eGRID subregion.
The subtotal covers selected activities in transport, home energy, meat and fish, and deliveries. Some factors include production emissions, but the rest of your food, clothing, electronics and services are omitted. It is not a whole-lifestyle footprint. National CO₂ statistics and broader lifestyle CO₂e budgets have different scopes, so neither reference can establish target achievement. Multiplying this week by 52 is an annualized scenario, not a forecast of your year.
What goes in for one week and what comes out
There are twelve inputs and every one is "this week". The table below walks one set of example values through the arithmetic by category, using the same factors and the same rounding as the screen.
- Getting around — the car you mostly drive, miles driven, bus miles, subway or rail miles
- Home energy — electricity in kWh, the grid emission factor, natural gas in therms
- Meat and fish — beef, pork, chicken and fish meals, at 150 g (about 5.3 oz) of raw product each
- Deliveries — food delivery orders, assumed as an 8 km (5 mile) round trip by car plus 120 g of plastic packaging
- Result — weekly partial subtotal, A–D reference band, 52-week scenario, numerical ratios to unlike-scope references, illustrative comparisons and the forest
| Category | Input | Calculation |
|---|---|---|
| Getting around | Gasoline car 200 mi · bus 10 mi · subway 15 mi | 200 × 0.260 + 10 × 0.202 + 15 × 0.025 = 54.4 kgCO₂e |
| Home energy | Electricity 200 kWh · 0.384 kgCO₂e/kWh · natural gas 12 therms | 200 × 0.384 + 12 × 5.3435 = 141 kgCO₂e |
| Meat and fish | Beef 2 · pork 2 · chicken 3 · fish 1 | 2 × 14.92 + 2 × 1.85 + 3 × 1.48 + 2.04 = 40.0 kgCO₂e |
| Deliveries | 2 orders | 2 × 1.673 = 3.3 kgCO₂e |
| Partial subtotal | 239 kgCO₂e this week · reference band D | 52-week scenario: 12.41 tCO₂e; illustrative comparisons: 206 seedlings · hypothetical CO₂ sea-ice illustration 37.2 m² · 32,713 charges · 918 gasoline-car miles |
Where the A–D reference bands are drawn
The numerical reference is the 1.5-Degree Lifestyles report's 2030 household-consumption carbon budget of 2.5 tCO₂e per person per year, divided by 52: about 48.1 kgCO₂e per week. That budget covers a broader lifestyle than this tool. A–D locates only the entered subtotal relative to that number; A does not mean the lifestyle target is met.
- A — partial subtotal at or below the reference (48.1 kgCO₂e per week)
- B — above the reference, up to twice it (96.2 kg)
- C — above twice the reference, up to four times it (192.3 kg)
- D — more than four times the reference
- The US per-person figure (304 kgCO₂ per week) is a separate contextual mark and does not set the bands
- Omitted consumption cannot be corrected by moving down one band; a whole-lifestyle assessment needs the missing activities
How the car you pick changes the driving figure
The same 200 miles can differ by a factor of two depending on the drivetrain. The factors are the "average car" values from the UK government's 2026 set converted to miles; electric and plug-in cars multiply kWh per mile by the grid factor above, so editing that field moves the driving figure too.
- Gasoline 0.260 kgCO₂e/mile → 52.0 kg for 200 miles
- Diesel 0.278 → 55.6 kg
- Hybrid 0.209 → 41.7 kg
- Plug-in hybrid: fuel 0.144 plus 0.106 kWh/mile × 0.384 → 36.9 kg
- Electric 0.328 kWh/mile × 0.384 kgCO₂e/kWh → 25.2 kg (26.8 kg less than gasoline)
- Bus 0.202 and subway 0.025 kgCO₂e per passenger-mile: rail is about an eighth of the bus
Why the grid emission factor is a field you can edit
The earlier version applied a single 0.478 kgCO₂e/kWh to every visitor on Earth. Spain's grid is at 0.154 and Indonesia's at 0.680, so the same 200 kWh spans a fourfold range, and when that number is buried in code nobody can tell why their result came out the way it did. The same field drives EV charging and the smartphone-charge equivalent.
- US default 0.384 kgCO₂e/kWh — Ember 2025 carbon intensity of generation, checked 2026-09-05; EPA's eGRID national delivered average is 0.394
- If your utility or your eGRID subregion publishes its own factor, overwrite the default with it
- Changing the value updates home energy, EV driving and the phone-charge count at once
- Only values from 0 to 2 are accepted; anything else is flagged
Why one beef meal weighs as much as ten chicken meals
The earlier version had one "meat meal" at 2.5 kg. Beef and chicken differ tenfold in production emissions, so the meal input is split four ways and uses per-kilogram figures from the 2018 Science meta-analysis by Poore and Nemecek, which covers 38,000 farms in 119 countries, multiplied by a 150 g serving.
- Beef 99.48 kgCO₂e/kg → 14.9 kg per meal
- Pork 12.31 → 1.8 kg per meal
- Chicken 9.87 → 1.5 kg per meal
- Fish (farmed) 13.63 → 2.0 kg per meal
- 150 g is roughly a quarter-pound burger patty and a half, or one steak; count a large portion as two meals
- Rice, vegetables and dairy are not counted; this category shows the meat and fish share only
Where the 1.7 kg per delivery comes from
The old 1.2 kg had no source. The figure is now built from two disclosed parts: the driver's round trip between the restaurant and your door, and the production of the single-use plastic containers.
- Average gasoline car 0.16152 kgCO₂e/km × 8 km (5 mile) round trip = 1.292 kg
- Plastic containers 120 g × 3.1705 kgCO₂e/kg (primary production, average plastics) = 0.380 kg
- Total 1.673 kgCO₂e per order
- The 8 km and 120 g are assumptions; a long-distance order or extra containers push the real figure higher
- The food itself is counted under meat and fish, not here, so nothing is double counted
How the seedling count is worked out
The annualized partial subtotal is divided by 60.5 kgCO₂, which is what the US EPA's equivalencies calculator assigns to one urban tree seedling grown for ten years (it states the same thing as 16.5 seedlings per metric ton). EPA's own references page derives that number as an annual average per tree, so the label and the derivation do not quite line up. The example subtotal of 12.41 tCO₂e gives a numerical comparison of 206 seedlings, not a planting requirement or a guaranteed offset. The forest draws up to 300 icons and appends a count for the rest.
- Seedling comparison = annualized partial subtotal in kgCO₂e ÷ 60.5, rounded up
- This is EPA's urban planting figure with survival factored in; a mature forest tree absorbs at a different rate
- The Korean page uses a 30-year pine at 6.6 kg a year from the national forest institute, the Japanese page a 36 to 40-year cedar at 8.8 kg a year from the Forestry Agency
Sea ice is measured as area, not weight
Notz and Stroeve (Science, 2016) found an observed linear relationship between cumulative anthropogenic CO₂ emissions and monthly-mean September Arctic sea-ice area: a sustained loss of 3 ± 0.3 m² per metric ton of CO₂. This is an area relationship for CO₂, not for a mixture of greenhouse gases expressed as CO₂e.
- Illustration: weekly partial subtotal × 52, treating the same numerical mass as hypothetical CO₂, then × 0.003 m² per kgCO₂
- Example: the annualized subtotal is 12.41 tCO₂e; if that mass were CO₂, the illustration would be about 37.2 m²
- This does not predict your personal ice loss or establish that CO₂e has the same sea-ice effect as CO₂
Smartphone charges and gasoline-car miles
One small yardstick and one large one. A smartphone charge takes 0.019 kWh in EPA's calculation references, multiplied here by the grid factor above, so one charge on the US grid is about 7.3 g. Gasoline-car miles divide the weekly total by the average gasoline car at 0.260 kgCO₂e per mile.
- Example values: 239 kgCO₂e this week → about 32,713 smartphone charges
- Same values → about 918 miles in a gasoline car, roughly New York to Chicago and a bit further
- Edit the grid factor and the charge count moves with it; a cleaner grid means more charges per kilogram
How to read the US per-person reference
The national mark is consumption-based CO₂ from fossil fuels and industry, adjusted for trade and divided by population (15.81 tCO₂ in 2023, or 304 kg per week). The example produces a numerical ratio of 78.5%; this is not a like-for-like footprint comparison.
- The national statistic counts CO₂, while this partial subtotal also includes other greenhouse gases as CO₂e
- The lifestyle budget covers food, housing, transport, goods, leisure and services: more than the selected activities entered here
- Neither reference establishes target achievement or a whole-lifestyle grade
Where this translation can be off
The result is an estimate and the direction of the error is usually predictable. Check these before you quote a number anywhere.
- Vehicle factors are UK average-car figures converted to miles; a full-size SUV or pickup emits more, a compact less
- Bus and subway factors are UK government values and differ from actual occupancy on your route
- The 150 g serving is an assumption; adjust the meal count if your portions differ
- Entering a whole household's electricity and gas as your own overstates your per-person figure
- The grid factor is an annual average and ignores seasonal and hourly variation
- This is not a figure for carbon trading, corporate reporting or regulatory filing
What to have ready before you start
A few records from this week are enough. Blank fields are handled two ways: activity fields such as miles, kWh and meals count as zero when empty so nothing is invented, while the grid factor, which only scales an activity you already entered, falls back to the faint example value.
- Weekly miles from the odometer or your navigation app
- Monthly electricity bill kWh divided by 4.3 (860 kWh a month is about 200 a week)
- Monthly natural gas therms divided by 4.3; summer bills shrink to cooking and hot water
- Beef, pork, chicken and fish meals this week
- Delivery app order history for the week
- If you share a home, decide first whether to split electricity and gas by the number of people
- "Save report image" downloads a PNG drawn by your browser; nothing is sent to a server
Where the factors come from
Vehicle, transit, natural gas and plastics factors are from UK DESNZ 2026; meat and fish from the 2018 Science paper; the grid factor and national CO₂ reference from Ember and the Global Carbon Budget; seedlings and phone charges from the US EPA. The 2016 sea-ice paper concerns cumulative CO₂ and is used here only for a hypothetical CO₂ illustration.
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the carbon footprint calculator?
The calculator estimates a year across driving, transit, flights, electricity, heating, diet, waste and water and adds reduction scenarios. This page estimates selected activities for one week and shows a partial CO₂e subtotal with illustrative comparisons. Its sea-ice figure assumes hypothetical CO₂, not predicted ice loss. Use the calculator for a broader annual estimate and this page to compare changes in the activities you enter.
Does switching to an electric car make driving zero?
No. An EV has no tailpipe, but the electricity it charges with has to be generated. At the US default of 0.384 kgCO₂e/kWh and an average EV at 0.328 kWh per mile, 200 miles comes to 25.2 kgCO₂e. That is 26.8 kg less than the 52.0 kg of a gasoline car over the same distance, but not zero. The status line shows that saving when you pick an electric or hybrid car.
My reference band is C but the US per-person ratio says 40%. What do they mean?
They use different reference numbers, neither with the same scope as your result. The band places a partial CO₂e subtotal against 48.1 kgCO₂e per week, derived from a broader lifestyle budget. The national ratio uses a consumption-based CO₂ statistic of 304 kg per week, not a total of all greenhouse gases. Neither establishes target achievement or a whole-lifestyle grade, and missing consumption cannot be corrected by subtracting one band.
Why is one beef meal so large?
Cattle emit methane as they digest, and beef needs far more land for feed and pasture, so per kilogram it emits eight times what pork does and ten times what chicken does. At 150 g a meal, that is 14.9 kgCO₂e, the same as driving 57 miles in a gasoline car. Swapping one beef meal a week for chicken removes 13.4 kg from that week.
Where do I find my grid emission factor?
Your utility's published figure is the most accurate; if you are on a renewable plan, ask for that plan's factor. EPA's Power Profiler gives your eGRID subregion rate by zip code. If none of that is handy, leave the default: 0.384 kgCO₂e/kWh is Ember's 2025 carbon intensity for US generation, checked on September 5, 2026.
I only have monthly bills. How do I enter a week?
Divide the monthly figure by 4.3. A bill of 860 kWh is about 200 kWh a week; 52 therms of gas is about 12 a week. Winter gas bills are dominated by heating, so if it is summer now, a summer bill is closer to this week.
Are 206 seedlings the number of trees I should plant?
No. It divides the annualized partial subtotal by the 60.5 kgCO₂ that EPA assigns to an urban seedling grown for ten years, survival included. This is a numerical comparison, not a planting requirement or proof that those trees will offset the greenhouse gases you emit. Planting does not absorb anything immediately.
I read that 1 kg of CO₂ melts 3 kg of Arctic ice. Why does this show square meters?
That sentence misreads the paper. Notz and Stroeve (Science, 2016) related cumulative anthropogenic CO₂ to monthly-mean September Arctic sea-ice area, finding 3 ± 0.3 m² lost per metric ton of CO₂. Here the weekly partial CO₂e subtotal is multiplied by 52, treated as the same numerical mass of hypothetical CO₂, then multiplied by 0.003 m² per kgCO₂. It is an illustration, not a personal ice-loss prediction or evidence that CO₂e and CO₂ have the same sea-ice effect.
Does the delivery count include the food itself?
No. The delivery figure covers only the driver's 8 km round trip (1.292 kg) and 120 g of plastic containers (0.380 kg), 1.673 kgCO₂e per order. If the delivered meal was beef or chicken, enter it under meat and fish as well so nothing is missed and nothing is counted twice.
Is anything I type or save sent to a server?
No. All arithmetic runs in your browser, and the report image is a PNG your browser draws itself and downloads; nothing leaves the page. Refreshing clears the inputs.