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Our Ecologi subscription plans are based on calculations of individual carbon footprints &#8211; but how do we arrive at these numbers?
In this post, we’re going to deep dive into what footprints are, how they are calculated, and the methodology we use to calculate the carbon footprints that power our individual, family and Climate Positive Workforce® subscription plans.

<h2>Unpicking a carbon footprint</h2>
A ‘carbon footprint’ is an estimate of the total greenhouse gas emissions associated with something &#8211; an activity, individual, or organisation. The concept of individual carbon footprints has a rocky history &#8211; having been promoted by BP <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060212090704/http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9005334&amp;contentId=7009881">in an advertising campaign in 2005</a>. In terms of collective action though, footprints are useful in terms of calculating the average footprint of an individual within a population.
Whilst your individual footprint may be higher or lower than the average, depending on your personal lifestyle, there is an implicit base carbon footprint attributable to you, as a resident in your home country.
This is the average per capita carbon footprint for a person who lives where you do, and can be worked out by dividing the total greenhouse gas emissions from your country by its population. This footprint is measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

<h2>How to build a carbon footprint</h2>
Depending on which sources you look at, you might have noticed that the quoted figure for an average UK carbon footprint varies quite a lot. This is likely because the different sources are measuring footprints differently. At Ecologi, we include in our carbon footprints:
<ul>
<li>All greenhouse gases (GHGs). This means that as well as carbon dioxide (CO2), we include in the calculation the other gases which warm our planet, such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). In calculating a footprint, this is where “CO2e” comes from &#8211; the other greenhouse gases are illustrated as proxies of carbon dioxide based on their equivalent global warming potential (GWP).</li>
<li aria-level="1">Land use change. This refers to the net change in emissions caused by different usages of land. For example, a country or territory which has cleared lots of primary forest for agriculture would see a net increase in its overall emissions figure, since agricultural land is a less effective carbon sink than a healthy forest ecosystem.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Emissions transfers. This includes emissions for goods and services which are consumed in the territory, but are not produced there. For example, if you buy clothes or food in the UK which have been imported from another country, the emissions associated with the goods and services need to be included in the footprint as ‘consumption based’ emissions as well, since the emissions are generated as a result of buyers’ demand from the country.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Ecologi’s carbon footprint calculator</h2>
Taking all these factors into account, our footprint calculator for our individual, family and Climate Positive Workforce® subscription plans merges the country carbon footprint with UN population data to generate average individual footprints for many countries and regions around the world.
To generate our calculator, we had to synthesise a few different datasets:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">We retrieved emissions data from:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">UNFCCC (<a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/transparency-and-reporting/greenhouse-gas-data/ghg-data-unfccc/ghg-data-from-unfccc">download</a>);</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">CAIT (<a href="https://www.climatewatchdata.org/data-explorer/historical-emissions?historical-emissions-data-sources=cait&amp;historical-emissions-gases=all-ghg&amp;historical-emissions-regions=All%20Selected&amp;historical-emissions-sectors=total-including-lucf&amp;page=1">download</a>);</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">GCP (<a href="https://www.icos-cp.eu/science-and-impact/global-carbon-budget/2019">download</a>).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Emissions transfers data came from the GCP (<a href="https://www.icos-cp.eu/science-and-impact/global-carbon-budget/2019">download</a>).</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Population data came from the United Nations (<a href="https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/">download</a>).</li>
</ul>
We took UNFCCC data as the primary data source; where emissions data for a country was missing within the UNFCCC dataset, we opted to revert to data provided by CAIT. The dataset from CAIT is more comprehensive than that from the UNFCCC, since it records measured emissions by particular authoritative institutions – many of them US governmental departments, like the EPA. This data could be subject to its own institutional or political biases – but our research and our calculations led us to consider it broadly accurate, and for non-Annex I countries it provides a much fuller dataset than that of the UNFCCC.
So, the emissions data we used for calculating Ecologi’s individual footprints was to use the most recent UN figure for national emissions (up to 2016) – unless it was missing, or greater than 6 years old. In either of these cases, we would revert to the most recent CAIT data for that country instead.
Sometimes, usually for small island countries, there was neither UN data nor CAIT data – and for these countries unfortunately we do not have an exact footprint figure.
<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ppLdgvSiK56NjK3vvY-Twqqgcw6XYo22trwAdYcDQOw/edit?usp=sharing">View the full calculator here</a>

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<h2>Why doesn’t Ecologi calculate your footprint based on answering questions about your lifestyle?</h2>
App footprint calculators which ask questions about your lifestyle to determine your emissions use what’s called a ‘bottom-up’ approach &#8211; where you insert data about your day-to-day life and build a footprint from the ground up.
This approach can be considered fairly ‘accurate’ based on what you answer, but also tends to be ‘leaky’ as your footprint no doubt contains other areas that you weren’t able to disclose &#8211; which may be significant sources of emissions.
When you look at an entire country’s emissions by the sum of all of its industries, the calculation doesn’t ‘leak’ because all known emissions are all present.
Whilst your individual footprint may be higher or lower than the average for somebody who lives in your country, the law of averages provides us with a comprehensive initial figure for what your footprint would be, if all of the people in your country emitted the same.
You no doubt can think of two people within the same country who will have very different footprints. At Ecologi, this is really important to us, because we believe that those who have bigger footprints should pay for them.
That’s why, with all of our subscriptions we offer the opportunity to modify your base footprint upwards, if you consider your own lifestyle to be particularly carbon heavy (for example, if you would normally fly frequently).
<h2>Reality check</h2>
Whilst offsetting your carbon footprint with your Ecologi subscription is important, offsetting will not solve climate change on its own. If you live in a relatively wealthy country, the chances are that your carbon footprint is significantly higher than it needs to be, to help keep global warming below 1.5ºC or 2ºC.
You can use the Goals section of your Ecologi profile to set yourself lower carbon lifestyle goals, such as eating a plant-based diet or flying less (or not at all!). 
For more tips, read our article <a href="https://ecologi.com/articles/blog/environmental-activism-your-first-steps">here</a>.

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UK Voluntary Carbon Market Guide: Best Practices for Climate Action

The voluntary carbon market plays an important role in corporate climate strategies – but its effectiveness relies on buyers doing due diligence and rigorous quality assessment on each project, as well as placing the purchase of credits in the right place in the climate journey.
To ensure meaningful climate impact, businesses must develop a comprehensive carbon strategy and find ways to fund only high-quality credits in the voluntary carbon market – and this guide shows you how to do so with Ecologi.

<h2>Table of contents</h2>
<ul>
<li>When to buy carbon credits</li>
<li>Our new carbon projects assessment framework</li>
<li>Ecologi&#8217;s core due diligence principles</li>
<li>How Ecologi scores and ranks carbon credit projects</li>
<li>Questions to ask your carbon credit supplier</li>
<li>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</li>
</ul>

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<h2>When should businesses buy carbon credits in the voluntary market?</h2>
Businesses must not use credits in place of making direct, measurable reductions in their emissions. Instead, follow these steps to ensure you buy your carbon credits on the right step of your corporate climate action journey, and in the right way:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Measure your emissions first – to allow you to understand where your business’s emissions are coming from. 
</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Set science-based targets and work towards them – set ambitious targets aligned with the SBTi and compatible with the global 1.5ºC warming target.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM) – design your BVCM portfolio to work alongside your decarbonisation plan and address your unabated emissions in each reporting year. Align it with SBTi guidance and the Oxford Principles. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Buy high-quality carbon credits – use this guide to ensure the carbon credits you buy meet rigorous quality standards. Remember, under the SBTi framework you’ll also need permanent carbon removal credits for neutralising your residual emissions when you reach your net-zero date.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Disclose and report transparently – publicly disclose information about your carbon credit purchases, and clearly communicate the limited role of carbon credits in your broader sustainability strategy.</li>
</ol>

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<h2>Ecologi&#8217;s carbon project assessment framework</h2>
In April 2025, we published a report summarising how we assess carbon credit projects against our rigorous proprietary rubric. A snapshot of what goes into our carbon credit project assessment is below, or you <a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">download the full whitepaper here</a>.

<h2>Carbon project due diligence: Ecologi’s core principles</h2>
At Ecologi, we maintain general due diligence principles which we apply universally across the voluntary carbon market, to support our efforts to supply only high-quality carbon credits.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">ICROA-endorsed standards only – we supply credits exclusively from carbon standards which are ICROA-endorsed.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Responsive to ICVCM decisions – we support the ICVCM’s two-tick approach to providing CCP-Approval to project methodologies, and we go further still, to assess individual projects on their merits and limitations as well.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Keep the carbon credit life cycle as short as possible – 75% of our credits in 2024 came directly from project developers and their nominated dispensaries (as opposed to intermediaries on the secondary market), maximising the proportion of purchase price which goes to the developer.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Locally-appropriate projects only – we take care to ensure that supported projects are being applied in appropriate geographies, where they can have the greatest impact.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Deep project-level scrutiny – our extensive assessment criteria are specific to each type of project, and we assess every project against these criteria, ensuring the project’s specifics have been taken into account.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Methodological consensus – we synthesise data we receive from our partners Sylvera, BeZero Carbon, Calyx Global and Renoster) with our own in-house analysis to uncover where there is consensus about project quality, and improve confidence.</li>
</ul>

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<h2>How to evaluate carbon credits: Ecologi&#8217;s scoring methodology</h2>
We designed a three-layer assessment process which takes into account the merits and limitations of the carbon standard used, the carbon credit methodology used, and of the individual project design.
The tables below summarise some of the data inputs we use at each stage.

<h3>Assessment level: Carbon Standard</h3>
Examples: Gold Standard, Verra, Puro Earth, Isometric, Plan Vivo.

<h3>Assessment level: Methodology (or ‘Protocol’)</h3>
Examples: GS TPDDTEC, VM0048, ACM0002.

<h3>Assessment level: Project</h3>
Examples: GS 10790, VCS 1571.

Criteria in the assessment are categorised as either quality criteria or risk criteria, and are segmented by our three pillars of impact: Climate, Nature and People. Based on how it meets each criterion, the project gains points for quality criteria, and loses points for excess risk – ultimately giving a risk-adjusted value out of 100 for each of these pillars.
Having gathered our risk-adjusted pillar scores, we use our own unique scoring formula which weights the risk-adjusted Climate score of the project equally with the combined risk-adjusted Nature and People scores. The formula then produces an ‘overall’ score (also out of 100) for the project. In order to be supplied by Ecologi, projects must meet a minimum overall score of 80, and must achieve no lower than 65 in any given risk-adjusted pillar score.

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<h2>Key questions to ask carbon credit suppliers</h2>
Selecting the right carbon credit provider is important to help guide you to make informed choices as part of your corporate sustainability strategy. Before purchasing carbon credits, businesses should ask:
<h3>Project quality </h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you assess/validate/underwrite project quality? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do your projects get good ratings from the ratings agencies? If so, what ratings are they?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you source credits directly from project developers, or from the secondary market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you monitor projects over time to ensure continued success, and how do you remedy it, if a project&#8217;s quality drops?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Due diligence</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you ensure you are supporting the right projects in the right locations?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you account for project permanence and mitigate risks?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What makes your projects additional?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you assess the project&#8217;s impacts on climate, nature and people?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Positioning</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you contribute to the development of a high integrity voluntary carbon market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you align your portfolios with the Oxford Principles? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you reflect ICVCM guidance on carbon credit methodologies and technologies?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you build multi-year portfolios that align to mid- &amp; long-term SBTs?</li>
</ul>
As the voluntary carbon market evolves, corporate buyers have the power and the responsibility to demand high-impact credits to drive real climate progress. This means buyers have a responsibility to do due diligence before placing an order for carbon credits.

<h2>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</h2>
As a business committed to corporate climate action, understanding the voluntary carbon market is essential for making informed decisions about carbon credits. Our comprehensive whitepaper provides deeper insights into creating an effective sustainability strategy.
<a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download our full whitepaper</a> to learn how your business can navigate the voluntary carbon market with confidence.

<h2>Connect with one of our climate experts</h2>
Please complete our form to arrange a 30-minute discovery call to discuss your goals and get a tailored solution for your business.

Calculating individual carbon footprints at Ecologi

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