Carbon budgeting is a process of planning how much of an impact you'll have on climate change and reducing it as much as you can.
Your goal is to emit less than whatever budget amount you set. Ideally, your carbon budget is shrinking over time as you learn how to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.
Carbon budgeting is similar to the normal financial kind of budgeting, but the key unit of measurement is CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents) instead of just money. CO2e is a consolidated unit for all the different kinds of greenhouse gases there are that can contribute to climate change, and is commonly shown in grams (example: 1 kg CO2e).
Do you believe we should put a price on carbon? That’s carbon budgeting.
A beautiful carbon budget in Decarbon
A carbon budget is essentially the same thing as a carbon footprint. The slight difference in terms is the idea that with a budget you have more insights to manage your footprint over time.
<aside> ⚠️ Hold up! Wasn’t the term “carbon footprint” invented by an advertising firm for BP to cast blame and responsibility for the climate crisis on individuals instead of fossil fuel companies?
Yes — We did not create Decarbon to reinforce this false narrative. Rather, we believe that a convenient tracking tool, if implemented properly, can serve as a foundation for the broader, collective action that will produce meaningful change.
It’s frustrating (and evil, frankly) that something that could be empowering has been co-opted by those most responsible for this crisis for nefarious purposes. We need to take it back and use it in a way that reinforces our primary mission: stopping climate change.
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It should be as low as possible! The actual number matters much less than the actual effort of reducing your impact.
That said, we suggest trying to limit your annual budget to 7 metric tons of CO2e per person in your household or organization (learn more on Carbon Brief). This is much easier said than done — the average footprint of an American household is 14.5 tons (16 US tons!
You can set and adjust your budget in Decarbon from Your profile.
One person's carbon impact is a teeny tiny drop in the giant lake-sized bucket of global emissions.
But! Your personal carbon budget absolutely matters. For a few reasons: