CARBON CALCULATOR

Calculate your carbon footprint - and take action

Carbon Offsets

Trees, Water & People invests your carbon offset donation in projects that improve quality of life for rural people in Central America, and that reduce or sequester CO2 emissions.

Planting trees is one of the most efficient ways to sequester CO2, and each year we plant over 100,000 trees that produce fruit, timber, rich soil, and shade while absorbing CO2 to grow. However, because tracking tree survival and growth rates is resource intensive, and because climate change makes it more difficult for seedlings to survive,we've made the decision to no longer offer tree planting as an offset option.

TWP’s Justa cookstove program generates employment, improves indoor air quality inside a Central American home, and reduces CO2 emissions from cooking with firewood by 50%. Because we have extensive data on this program, and continue to track it in more sophisticated ways, all carbon offset donations will go to building new stoves.

At TWP, we always ensure our offset program meets the needs of local people first, and provides direct, tangible benefits above and beyond the emission reductions.

For a list of references, calculators and cited articles checkout the link below.

Ready… Let’s calculate your offset!




If your business would like to offset with TWP, please send an email to offset@treeswaterpeople.org to discuss your emissions, goals, and offset options.

Wondering where we get our numbers? Take a peek here.

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To find the carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents for each means of consumption, extensive research was conducted to ensure accuracy.

We based our findings on the data provided by six public conservation calculators to find a carbon 'factor'. This carbon factor can be used to convert utilities and travel to tons of CO2 offset. Due to a lack of consistency between the calculators, we used the averages (where available) across the six calculators. All of the carbon calculators work the same by using a carbon factor that varies based on a few factors such as the size of vehicle or fuel type and then multiplying that factor by your consumption (miles driven/flown, energy use, etc.) to find the amount of carbon emitted.

In order to get our own carbon factors, we reverse engineered this process. By finding the average carbon emission of different consumption types then dividing those numbers by usage, which gave us the “carbon factor,” that allows us to easily compute carbon emissions. This process was then replicated to find emissions related to food consumption based on data provided by the University of Michigan. For more details on how we determined average levels of consumption please refer to the works cited below.

Calculators used:

Native Energy, Carbon Fund, Carbon Footprint, Saving Species, Carbon Care, Environmental Paper.

For information on average flight capacity and distances refer here:

Brander, J., & Zhang, A. (1990). Market Conduct in the Airline Industry: An Empirical Investigation. The RAND Journal of Economics, 21(4), 567-583. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2555469

Goldstein, M. (2018, July 9). Meet The Most Crowded Airlines: Load Factor Hits All-Time High. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2018/07/09/meet-the-most-crowded-airlines-load-factor-hits-all-time-high/#1c8ebbf154fb.

Refer here for more information on the carbon emissions related to food consumption:

Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan. 2018. "Carbon Footprint Factsheet." Pub. No. CSS09-05. Retrieved from http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet

Vehicle data:

Shepardson, D. (2018, January 11). U.S. vehicle fuel economy rises to record 24.7 mpg: EPA. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-emissions-idUSKBN1F02BX.

Fuelly, L. L. C. (n.d.). Track, Share and Compare your Vehicle. Retrieved from http://www.fuelly.com/.

Numbers for average fuel economy were pulled from the National Highway Safety Administration.

For information on average energy usage refer here:

Washington State University. (2008). Population and Energy Consumption. Retrieved from https://public.wsu.edu/~mreed/380American Consumption.htm.

EIA. (2019, October 2). U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3.

EIA. (2017). U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.eia.gov/state/seds/data.php?incfile=/state/seds/sep_sum/html/rank_ng_capita.html.