Calculating your Carbon Footprint

As a next stage you could make a personal improvement plan, and by playing with the figures make your own CO₂ emissions more tangible for yourself and to others, basically by using (fun) metaphors.

But for now, we would like to ask you to calculate your own personal carbon footprint over 2006. To do so, there is a great website you can use (you can choose the English version by clicking on the UK flag).

The tool allows you to fill-in your energy and transport use and subsequently calculate your CO₂ emissions (obviously you can ignore the business-related parts of the tool.) Both might require some assessments if you e.g. share a house with your family or friends. Regarding possible flights you have made, you can even do a more detailed calculation on the Atmosfair website.

And of course compensating those journeys is a way to start to improve your carbon footprint.

Calculating your Ecological Footprint

Another way to make your own environmental impact more tangible is by calculating your own ecological footprint. The site www.myfootprint.org provides you with a simple and easy tool to roughly calculate your own ecological footprint. So have a go with both tools and, if you want, you can mail the outcomes of your personal carbon imprint and ecological footprint before the chat to: Julian v. Blücher. If you have any questions, please feel free to write to Julian.

The principle of climate neutrality

Climate change has become tangible for everyone. As a result, in recent years, public expectations towards voluntary climate protection activities by companies and individuals have strongly increased.

Climate neutral activities offer companies the opportunity to include climate protection activities in their corporate communications and to position themselves as innovative players. Pioneer companies from various sectors are already utilizing this potential and implement climate neutral activities tailor-made by 3C.

3C, the climate change consultancy offers a number of services including the development of concepts for climate neutral activities, the calculation of emissions to be neutralized or assistance in the communication of climate neutral activities.

The basic idea of climate neutrality is simple: Greenhouse gases have a damaging global impact, and for climate protection it is irrelevant where they emerge or where they are avoided. Therefore unavoidable emissions of greenhouse gases which are produced at location A - for example through travel - can be neutralized through climate protection activities at location B - for example by building energy efficient houses. Companies can use the attribute "climate neutral" for example for events or products, but also in the context of voluntary commitments to climate neutral business activities.

Climate-neutral World Cup!

This year's Football World Cup in Germany was organized to be climate-neutral. PlasticsEurope was an official supporter of the Green Goal, the programme that made the World Cup climate neutral.

In May 2006 PlasticsEurope organized an event to celebrate the success of the Green Goal. 3C calculated the CO₂ emissions that this event generated. The calculation took into account travel arrangements of the guests, including flights, taxi rides and people arriving by car. Together with the energy demand of the reception the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the event were calculated. These were offset by investment inter alia in a project in the Sebokeng Township in South Africa to promote the production of clean energy from sewage gas.