Calculate your carbon footprint
What is your carbon footprint?
Your carbon footprint is a simple way of showing how your lifestyle leads to carbon emissions. It’s your impression on the planet. By carbon emissions, we mean greenhouse gases – mostly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Humans produce these gases in vast quantities by doing things like burning coal, oil and gas for energy and cutting down forests and through agriculture. Your individual emissions are built up from your personal consumption e.g. electricity and travel, as well as the energy that’s required to produce your food and all the other stuff you buy, whether it’smade in the UK or elsewhere in the world.
Why does it matter?
Your footprint value is an annual figure in “tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent – or tCO2e”. The average UK carbon footprint in 2025 is 8.4 tonnes. You can calculate your own carbon footprint using the WWF Footprint Calculator.
To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to keep global warming below 1.5°C. If everyone on the planet were allocated a ‘fair share’ of global carbon emissions, each person should have afootprint of around 1 tonne by the year 2050 – as the “government spend” is already more than twice this level it is obviously not possible yet to get to this level. This is significantly less than the average current UK footprint, but this should not discourage you. Do all you can to reduce your own footprint, and with your help we’ll continue to fight for action from businesses and governments.