GOVERNMENT LAUNCH CARBON FOOTPRINT CALCULATOR

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20th June 2007

The Environment Secretary, David Miliband has today launched a new online carbon footprint calculator.

Written by : William Musson for Ecofreak

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MILIBAND UNVEILS CARBON FOOTPRINT CALCULATOR

David Miliband has today launched an online calculator that will enable us all to work out own individual or household carbon footprint.

The calculator takes government recognised data and applies it to lifestyle information provided by the user to work out a carbon footprint. Three areas of lifestyle are taken into account : home energy, appliances and transport. The calculator then produces a tailored action plan outlining steps that might be taken to cut CO2 emissions.

DEFRA has recently commissioned research that showed that of the people in Britain :

94% now believe that the world's climate is changing
57% believe that we already feeling the impacts of climate change
66% said they were already trying to take personal action to limit climate change.

The CO2 calculator aims to raise people's awareness of their carbon footprint and to help them take effective measure to reduce it.

For the moment the calculator is only a trial version and it is intended that it will be updated and improved using feedback and ideas from users alongside additional features aimed at making it easier to use.

Why not take a look at http://www.direct.gov.uk/actonCO2 ?

Ecofreak Comment :

This is a great idea and hopefully will allow all of us who are interested to work out our carbon footprint and monitor the effectiveness of any changes in lifestyle that we are able to make.

Unfortunately I have not been able to try it yet as, at the time of writing this article, the actonCO2 site is displaying a message apologising for it not working! According to the site it will be "raring to go" soon.

So... I will try again soon - let's hope it can live up to expectations created by Mr Miliband!