Offsetting your lifestyle

With so many organisations now going carbon neutral, an increasing number of people are asking us how much it would cost to offset their whole lives. The answer is lower than you might think. You don’t need to plant a great big forest, more likely a modest copse.

The components of your carbon footprint

For the vast majority of organisations, their carbon footprint is comprised of emission created from the following sources …

• Road transport

• Air transport

• Buildings

• Food

• Consumables

• Products?
  

When we make an assessment of an organisation’s carbon offsetting requirements, we make a relatively approximate assessment of these sources and then run accurate calculations to determine the number of trees that we need to plant.

In the sections that follow, we have tried to provide some clear examples of our calculations. We are always keen to improve and tune our science, so we very much welcome feedback and questions.