If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard of “carbon footprint” and wondered what it means. The term was coined in the early 1990s by Professor David McCollum at the University of California Berkeley. But what is a carbon footprint? Simply put, it’s the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions related to a product or service. That could include everything from transporting materials and merchandise via planes, trains and automobiles; producing material goods; using electricity at home; or even making your own coffee at work every morning.

Carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions, represented in CO2 equivalent, related to a product or service.

You might be wondering what the “carbon footprint” really is. A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions, represented in CO2 equivalent, related to a product or service. Greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, which contributes to climate change and global warming. Carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of human activity, but it has contributed greatly to climate change and global warming since industrialization began.

A carbon footprint can be calculated for a single product, an entire company, or even an individual.

How did you calculate your carbon footprint?

The first step in calculating a carbon footprint is to come up with a list of all the activities you do that contribute to climate change. Then, assign them a value based on how much CO2 they add to the atmosphere. You can do this by using statistics from an organization like British Petroleum or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Once you’ve done this, multiply each activity’s contribution by an average amount of CO2 produced per unit of that activity—say, gallons of gas burned per mile driven or pounds of plastic packaging used per product shipped—to get your final number. If you’re worried about getting mired in math overload, there are plenty of tools that can help: The EPA has their own Climate Change Calculator; Carbon Footprint Calculator lets you plug in what kinds of appliances and electronic devices you use; My Footprint takes into account where and how often we travel; and Cooler Planet lets us track our energy usage from multiple sources at once.

A carbon footprint is made up of five sources of emissions; transportation, product use, production and processing, supply chain, and waste.

The carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions, represented in CO2 equivalent, related to a product or service. It can be calculated for a single product, an entire company, or even an individual.

Emissions from different sources are combined together within the same calculation. There are five main sources of emissions that make up a carbon footprint: transportation, product use, production and processing (for example raw material extraction), supply chain (for example where the raw materials come from), and waste (for example landfills).

The size of your footprint depends on where you fit into this model—if you’re buying food at the grocery store then your biggest contribution will likely be through transportation fuel usage while if you’re making artisanal cheese at home then most of your emissions will come from electricity usage during production.

Transporting materials and merchandise via planes, trains and automobiles means more fuel consumption and therefore more CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere.

Transportation is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The carbon footprint of transportation is growing, accounting for more than 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. This sector has seen an increase in both CO2 emissions and fuel use over the past few years and continues to be a major contributor to climate change today.

The production of material goods has been found to be one of the biggest contributors to carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

The production of material goods has been found to be one of the biggest contributors to carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This is because it takes a lot of energy and other resources to produce consumer goods, from mining the raw materials used in manufacturing, to packaging, distribution and transportation.

One study found that even though transportation accounts for 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it only accounts for 14 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions when you factor in production (which includes mining). The same study also found that product use contributes far less than you might think: just 7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions result from consumer behavior—that’s less than half as much as is created during production! Supply chain management contributes only 5 percent more than product use does.

Choosing locally sourced materials is one of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

Choosing locally sourced materials is one of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Local materials require less energy to transport, and they’re also more likely to be ethically sourced and recycled or repurposed when you’re ready to upgrade.

Choosing locally sourced materials reduces the distance materials need to travel, which means there’s less fuel consumed in transportation. And since fossil fuels contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, choosing local products saves you money—and helps protect our planet!

There are a number of ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your business.

There are many ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

• Purchase local food, goods and services whenever possible. For example, if you’re in San Francisco and need office supplies, instead of purchasing them online from Amazon or another company, buy them at a local store. This will reduce emissions by cutting down on the transportation necessary for products like paper and ink cartridges (which can account for a significant portion of one’s electricity consumption).

• Recycle as much as possible. This is especially true when it comes to plastic bottles; according to Treehugger: “Plastic bottles take over 1,000 years to degrade in landfills.”

• Install motion sensors on lights so they turn off automatically when they’re not needed; this saves money while saving energy!

• Reduce waste—if you go through copious amounts of toilet paper every month or have several bags full of trash each week that get thrown away without any thought or care behind them (such as empty soda bottles), start looking into alternative methods for dealing with these items instead! For instance: composting organic matter like food scraps/plant material could help promote soil fertility as well as prevent methane emissions from decaying vegetation within landfill sites.”

So…

The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is by making smart decisions about the things that you buy and use. By making the right choices, you can help save the environment while also saving money!