The art of personal carbon calculation is a tricky business indeed as identified in a recent Ask Umbra section on Grist. When we first conceived of the idea of Edenbee we looked at the standard for online carbon calculators and came to the conclusion that after spending quite a bit of time rummaging around for bills, remembering fights and running out to check your cars odometer, the return was often a negative ‘you have burned burned the equivalent of four planets or your carbon footprint was 8.5 tonnes’ with no follow up material about what you could do about this.
These calculations were always a one-off calculation in time and out of touch with peoples realties, so we decided it would be better if we could offer people a place to track their carbon footprint over time and backed up by a place where you could share ideas and ask and answer questions. Also as a Grist reader rightly points out “you're dealing with approximations and averages, so even detailed footprint calculators have to infer a significant amount of data.”
We have always sought for as much accuracy as possible and this is why we utilise AMEE a back end service for carbon data, with the data freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution and Share-Alike license. It’s credibility? Well the UK government uses it as part of their national campaign as do the Irish government along side a host of clients such as Google, Morgan Stanley and more recently Radiohead to measure their concerts. But we have always come down on the side that carbon calculators are awareness tools primarily and the accuracy should come second.
As we embark on further development of Edenbee we wanted to ask you, the user what your thoughts are on carbon calculators, our own calculator, your frustrations, the problems you face, what would you like? What kind of service are you looking for? If you could imagine something what would it be? Dare to dream and leave us your comments.
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