This post evaluates 5 of the carbon footprint calculators that are listed on this site by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They have many of them, but I chose 5 to review based on a few factors. The first was that it had to be for the United States, and specifically Arizona. There are some available for worldwide audiences. Secondly, because I could not review all of them in a timely fashion, I quickly browsed through them, which offered a quick judgment. If they didn’t seem on first glance to be in the top 5, they were not evaluated in detail. Lastly, if there was any barrier to use, such as registration or payment, it was not reviewed.

On to the reviews!

1: Berkeley

This is clearly the best carbon footprint calculator that I have seen on the web. There are several features that make this the clear winner. One thing that this calculator has that most others don’t is that it includes the household income - realizing that on average richer people will tend to emit more CO2 than those who are a little less well off. By including this bit of information into their calculation, they are offering a better estimate of your carbon footprint.

It offers the typical section for how often you drive your car and fly on an airplane. It does offer the opportunity to have up to 3 car listed with different fuel efficiencies. There is a section for how often you use public transportation as well. They are nice and provide default average values for these in case you need to estimate your values.

The food section is distinguished from every other calculator in that is separates out the food into types: like meat, dairy, and fruit. I assume, but don’t know for sure, that their CO2 footprint calculations weight meat higher than fruit, for instance.

Like the food section, the foods and goods section of the survey is unique. None of the other calculators have a sections for this important item. You just indicate how much you’ve purchased, in dollar amounts, and their unknown formula estimates the CO2 footprint from that. For the average values they give this amounts to a noticeable amount of a persons total footprint.

The output from the Berkeley carbon footprint calculator is by far the best. It offers a colorful presentation of how your footprint compares to others in similar households, the US average, and the World average, and is subdivided by each of their 5 categories. In addition, they show this in a bar chart at the bottom of the page.

On the right side is a nice graphic that shows how your footprint is subdivided into each of their categories. Finally, they offer quantitative comparisons in the form of percentages on how you relate to others, and your energy equivalent in barrels of oil.

2: Nature Conservatory

Not far behind the first place finisher, but well ahead of the remainder of the pack is the carbon calculator from the Nature Conservatory. They ask a number of questions on a variety of topics with pop-up suggestions for reducing your CO2 footprint. One example is that hot water heaters should be properly insulated. Most of them are like that; the simple energy-saving tips you see all around the Internet.

The questionnaire starts off by asking what state you live in. Sorry to international Interneters, this is only for US folk. It estimates you CO2 equivalent impact based on the state average. The top 12 states are shown below along with their average CO2 equivalent per year in parentheses. [Note: these are only for large apartment buildings with 1 bedroom.]

Idaho (2.6), Vermont (2.6), Washington (4.3), Oregon (4.5), California (5.3), South Carolina (6.7), New Jersey (6.8), New Hampshire (7.1), South Dakota (7.9), Maine (8.2), New York (8.3), Arizona (9.0)

The answers to the questions they ask either add on to, or subtract from this number. That is, it your answers represent an anomaly from the average value, and it is not trying to be a true representation of your carbon footprint. Also, this number only refers to the average home energy use. These couple of questions can reduce your carbon footprint by 3 tons of CO2 eq per year or add up to 1.5.

The transportation section is typical. It asks how many miles you drive, your fuel efficiency, and how often you fly. It also asks about the air filter and tire pressure. For the amount I drive, these factors are negligible.

Like for home energy use, the food section of the survey uses an average value and then either adds or subtracts from that value depending on your answers. This time they use the national average, and their are only 2 questions: whether you eat meat and whether you eat organic foods.

Finally, they ask about recycling. Again there are only 2 questions. And if you recycle everything, it only subtracts 0.7 tons CO2 eq per year. That’s equivalent to driving 20 miles less per week for the average American, which is a reduction of about 10%.

The results are slightly disappointing, although better than most. There is a bar chart comparison of your CO2 eq emissions with both the US average and the World average. There is also 2 pie charts breaking down both your emissions and the average US emissions based on the 4 categories of questions they ask about.

3: AOL

This is a no frills carbon footprint calculator that has few options, and comes in a distant third on this ranking of calculators. It offers the classic home and car categories. Unfortunately, it does not provide a method for estimation of your CO2 footprint from air travel.

This is intended to be a calculator for the entire household. However, it does not ask about important factors that could contribute to the size of a households carbon footprint. The most obvious is that it does not ask how large a home you live in. According to this calculator a 4-person family living in a apartment would have the same footprint as a 4-person family living in a 25,000 sq.ft. mansion (everything else being equal).

They do have a modest section that calculates how much CO2 is ’saved’ by your recycling efforts.

One nice thing is that they offer suggestions at each stage on how to reduce your footprint. There are options such as riding a bike to work, and this section will show you how much CO2 you can potentially reduce. It’s this part that lifts it slightly above the others.

The results page is disappointing. For starters, it gives the answer in pounds of CO2 per year. Come on, don’t give me that big number and expect it to fool me into thinking I need to reduce it. Most of the other calculators give their answers in tons of CO2 per year. And for those who don’t know the conversion from pounds to tons, and don’t know how to use The Google, this could make this calculator confusing.

4: Yahoo

Yahoo offers a simple calculation of your carbon footprint based on the size of your home, and the amount you drive and fly. It’s incredibly simple and boring. While a large portion of your footprint may be from housing and transportation, a sizable amount is found in other aspect as shown by the calculators from Berkeley and Nature Conservatory.

The output is nothing special. It shows how much CO2 you emit compared to the national average. They also break down your amount, but not the national average, into their three categories.

5: ClimateCrisis.net

Coming in last is the carbon footprint calculator from Al Gore (drink!). There are the usual questions about how many people live in your house, how far you drive, and what’s your fuel economy. It asks about your source of energy for your home, and is the only one to ask whether any of your energy is “green”.

This calculator does ask how often you fly. And they break the flying into short and long flight. I’m sure there’s a reason for this, although it would seem that just asking how long you’re on an airplane per year would give just as good a guess.

The results are underwhelming. I get to see my CO2 footprint and the national average. That’s it. Oh, and a link offering to offset my home or car.

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