What is a carbon footprint?

A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions for which a given product, individual, business or organization is responsible (1). Most carbon footprints present the amount of carbon generated in units of carbon/ unit of time (i.e. 7.5 tons per year is the national average for an individual, according to the 'an inconvenient truth' website).

What activities does a carbon footprint take into account?

Most carbon footprint calculators use information about the state you live in, the number of people per household, monthly heating oil, propane, natural gas and electricity expenditures, as well as average yearly mileage on the type of car you specify to own and typical number of airplane flights and average length of those flights per year. [For an excellent explanation of how these inputs are calculated into a carbon footprint, visit the an inconvenient truth carbon calculator and click on "how was it calculated?" at the bottom of the screen].

Some calculators only take into account carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions while others account for all greenhouse gases. A lack of international standards leads to a variation in the type of activities accounted for in carbon footprint analysis (2).

What is the CO2 footprint for Temple Anshe Hesed?

In 2007, Temple Anshe Hesed emitted approximately 36.5 tons of CO2 through the use of electricity and natural gas, alone.

To see how the carbon footprint for Temple Anshe Hesed was calculated, click on the following links for the explanation and spreadsheet.

If you are developing a carbon offset program for your organization, you may want to develop your own carbon calculator to have full control over what is and is not calculated in your footprint. To get a start, check out the links below for popular carbon footprint calculators.