carbon offsetting for lifestyles

Introduction

For individuals, carbon neutralising your whole lifestyle can be a wonderfully uplifting experience, liberating you from so-called ‘consumer guilt’ and enabling you to enjoy your life more freely, in the knowledge that your impact on the environment has been drastically reduced.

Eliminating your carbon footprint is remarkably easy to do and, for most people, turns out to be surprisingly low cost, typically coming in at 0.1% to 0.4% of your income.

Your personal carbon footprint is derived from your consumption of food, transport, housing, utilities, products and entertainment and is therefore very much dependent upon your lifestyle choices.

The average carbon footprint in developed countries is around 14,000 kgCO2e per person per year, but ranges between 5500 kgCO2e and 150,000 kgCO2e per year depending on consumption habits.

The cost to offset the average lifestyle and go carbon neutral is around USD 600 (range USD 240-6500) in the first year and USD 210 (range USD 85-2275) in subsequent years.

Below we describe three ways that you can quantify your personal carbon footprint. If that’s too difficult for any reason, we then go onto describe six sample lifestyles for you to choose from.

Once you‘ve quantified your emissions, you can choose to go neutral by getting us to plant the appropriate number of our super-efficient tropical trees especially for you.

Simple calculation

The quickest and easiest way to calculate your carbon footprint is to estimate your total spend during a year and multiply it an average emissions factor.

It’s rather crude and approximate, but is an obvious place to start.

From there we can calculate how many tropical trees we need to plant to offset your footprint and how much that would cost …

Annual Spend x Emissions Factor = Emissions = Trees = Year 1 cost / Year 2+ cost

USD 25,000 x 0.275 = 6875 kgCO2e = 75 trees = USD 300 / USD 90
USD 50,000 x 0.275 = 12,500 kgCO2e = 136 trees = USD 544 / USD 180
USD 75,000 x 0.275 = 20,625 kgCO2e = 225 trees = USD 900 / USD 297
USD 100,000 x 0.275 = 27,500 kgCO2e = 299 trees = USD 1196 / USD 395
USD 250,000 x 0.275 = 68,750 kgCO2e = 748 trees = USD 2992 / USD 987
USD 500,000 x 0.275 = 137,500 kgCO2e = 1495 trees = USD 5980 / USD 1973 ADD GBP

If you are happy to run with this kind of broad brush calculation, then all you need to do is take a note of the number of trees and click on this link to purchase your offsets …

Medium calculation

If you would like to calculate your carbon footprint more accurately, then you can grab and pen and paper and follow these instructions …

Instructions

1 : Start with your total annual spend in USD.
2 : Allocate your spend to the following categories, putting any remainder in ‘unallocated’.
3 : Multiply each spend by the emissions factor for each category to get the emissions value for each.
4 : Add up all of the emissions from the different categories to get your total emissions.
5 : Divide this by 92 to get the number of trees needed to offset your emissions and reach carbon neutral status.
6 : Multiply by 4 to get the cost in USD for the first year.
7 : Multiply that amount by 0.35 to get the cost in USD for subsequent years.

Emissions categories

Electricity = xxxx
Heating = xxxx
Water = xxxx
xxxxxxxx = xxxx
xxxxxxxx = xxxx
xxxxxxxx = xxxx
Unallocated = 0.275

If you are satisfied that you have come up with a number that reflects your carbon footprint with a reasonable degree of accuracy, then all you need to do is take a note of the number of trees and click on this link to purchase your offsets …

Advanced calculation

If you would like a more detailed analysis of your carbon footprint, then please contact us on the link below and we will email a questionnaire for you to complete.

Once you send that back, we will undertake the necessary calculations and provide you with a detailed presentation, along with a quotation for offsetting.

We offer this services with no charge and no obligation, although we do ask that you only do it if you are seriously considering going carbon neutral in this way.

1 of 6

A very modest lifestyle

People who fall into the lowest of our six sample lifestyles, tend to be extremely aware of the environment and are actively conscientious about maintaining a low carbon footprint.

Total annual carbon emissions

1489 kgC

Number of tropical trees = 60
Offsetting cost in first year = USD 240
Offsetting cost in subsequent years = USD 72

2 of 6

A modest lifestyle

People who fall into the second lowest of our six sample lifestyles, tend to be aware of the environment and are reasonably conscientious about maintaining a low carbon footprint.

Total annual carbon emissions

2405 kgC

Number of tropical trees = 96
Offsetting cost in first year = USD 384
Offsetting cost in subsequent years = USD 115

3 of 6

A medium lifestyle

People who fall into the third of our six sample lifestyles, tend to have close to the average consumption habits, whilst at the same time putting a reasonable effort to keep a lid on their carbon footprint.

Total annual carbon emissions

4949 kgC

Number of tropical trees = 198
Offsetting cost in first year = USD 792
Offsetting cost in subsequent years = USD 238

4 of 6

A generous lifestyle

People who fall into the fourth of our six sample lifestyles, tend to be rather less conscious of their carbon footprint, instead choosing to enjoy the rewards of their hard-earned income.

Total annual carbon emissions

9538 kgC

Number of tropical trees = 382
Offsetting cost in first year = USD 1528
Offsetting cost in subsequent years = USD 458

5 of 6

A lavish lifestyle

People who fall into the fifth of our six sample lifestyles, tend to be quite wealthy. This provides them with temptations that can lead to a very high carbon footprint, something which they may well be conscious of and trying to avoid.

Total annual carbon emissions

19068 kgC

Number of tropical trees = 763
Offsetting cost in first year = USD 3052
Offsetting cost in subsequent years = USD 916

6 of 6

A super-lavish lifestyle

People who fall into the last of our six sample lifestyles, tend to be very wealthy and perhaps less concerned about the large size of their carbon footprint, especially given that they can easily afford to offset their emissions by getting us to plant a small forest.

Total annual carbon emissions

37201 kgC

Number of tropical trees = 1488
Offsetting cost in first year = USD 5952
Offsetting cost in subsequent years = USD 1756

Do it yourself

If you would like to more accurately calculate your own carbon footprint, the following page will walk you through the various types of emissions and lead you to a total, which you will be able to offset exactly.

Let us do it for you

If you would like us to undertake a bespoke calculation of your carbon footprint, the following page will enable you to input the information that we need to get started.