How big is your carbon footprint? Would you like to offset the impact of it? Use our simple online calculator to estimate your total emissions and find out what you can do to offset them.

The calculator allows you to input information related to energy use, travel, flights, food, and waste. It will provide an estimate of your emissions in tonnes of carbon dioxide or equivalent (CO2e) and enable you to easily see the percentage of the total that each sector makes up.

It will also advise you on the cost to offset these emissions with Carbon Neutral.

Click on the link to try our simple online calculator for individuals and families.

Offsetting emissions plays a key role in an overarching strategy to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. The first step in this strategy should always be to reduce emissions as much as possible. Carbon Neutral provides comprehensive information and links on how we can achieve emissions reductions from various sources in our daily lives.

Remaining emissions that can’t be reduced any further and legacy emissions – emissions still in the atmosphere from years past – can be offset through carbon sequestration activities such as tree planting or the purchase of verified offsets from emissions reduction projects that have already taken place. The United Nations’ Guide to Climate Neutrality (Kick the Habit; UNEMG, UNEP/GRID-Arendal, 2008) identifies the Reduction Cycle as follows: count and analyse > act > reduce > offset > evaluate.

Carbon Neutral provides two ways to offset emissions:
1. Planting Trees
Trees planted to offset emissions will take up to 100 years to fully sequester the CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) with the majority of sequestration occurring in the first 30 – 40 years. Trees also contribute to multiple environmental benefits on the ground. One tonne of CO2e may be offset over 100 years through a donation of $20.00.

2. Purchasing Greenhouse Friendly™ Verified Emissions Reductions (VERs)
VERs can be used for immediate offset and are created from officially approved projects such as avoided landfill. One VER equals one tonne of CO2e that is already offset. Carbon Neutral will also plant 2 trees for each VER purchased. A minimum purchase of 10 VERs applies. 1 VER may be acquitted with a donation of $20.00 (price subject to change depending on quantity).

For more information on both offsetting options please consult the Product Statement on our website.

Quality offset projects should following well recognised principals in their development and should be:
additional: the project would not take place in a business-as-usual scenario and the finds generated by the offsets are critical to its success.
permanent: that the generation of offsets has actually occurred and the carbon stored or
sequestered will not to be released into the atmosphere in the future.
measurable: that the methodologies used to quantify the amount of offset generated
are robust and can be justified.
transparent: consumers and other interested stakeholders should be able to examine
information on the projects.
independently verified: to validate the eligibility of the project and the offset achieved and to ensure that no conflict of interest occurs.
 

Planting trees is an effective way to absorb or 'sequester' carbon dioxide emissions.  Carbon Neutral plants hundreds of thousands of native trees each year in environmentally vulnerable areas to address a variety of environmental issues as well as helping to address climate change through the sequestration of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

While trees take many years to grow and sequester their full potential of CO2, they are one of the only ways to actively remove previous emissions from the atmosphere. In addition to helping clean our air, they also clean and improve our soil and ground water, reduce erosion, act as windbreaks, provide habitat for animals, and are crucial to the biological diversity of our land.