How do I calculate my family's footprint?

Brighter Planet’s footprint calculator estimates your individual footprint. This means we include both the greenhouse gas emissions you alone are responsible for and a portion of any emissions you share with your family or other people. Residences are a good example of shared emissions — if you say that four people live in your house, the calculator assigns you a quarter of the total emissions.

You can also use calculate your family’s footprint with a little extra work:

Under transportation

• Enter all the automobiles your family owns.
• Enter all the flights, bus trips, and train trips that everyone in your family takes. Multiply the emissions for each trip by the number of people that took it.
• For every other emitters under transportation, multiply the emissions by the number of people in your family.

Under shelter

• Enter all the houses your family owns. Multiply each house’s emissions by the number of people that live there.
• Multiply the total lodgings emissions by the number of people in your family.

Under consumables

• Enter a diet for every member of your family, or enter one diet and adjust the size to include everyone in your family.
• Multiply other consumables emissions by the number of people in your family.

Under government

• Multiply total government emissions by the number of people in your family.

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