The Carbon Series is a six-part series by Rethinking Climate which will explore carbon footprinting and offsets.
Carbon emissions are a big part of the climate crisis but it can be difficult to understand how our actions affect something that we cannot see or touch. A quick online search shows how many carbon calculators are available these days so we wanted to explore how they work and the role they can play in the sustainability journey.
(Episodes 1, 2, and 3) Carbon Footprint Calculators: WHAT, HOW, WHY
In the first part of this series we look at how some of these calculators differ from each other and how you can learn which one is best for you. Learning what your personal carbon footprint is can be useful to help you learn what areas of your life should be changed to help the environment. One option which has been pushed by many companies to reduce your carbon emissions is through offsetting schemes.
(Episodes 4, 5, 6) Carbon Offset Projects: WHAT, HOW, WHY
But what is an offset and can it be a greenwashing scheme to allow individuals and organisations to feel less guilty about their high emission activities? This series aims to help you critically look at when carbon calculators and offsets can be valuable and when they may over-promise. In learning how best to communicate sustainability, we want to look at these tools – which are marketed as being climate solutions – to see how to best incorporate them into our sustainability goal.
Rethinking Climate 