Personal consumption patterns make up a large part of your CO2 balance and are difficult to calculate due to the wide variety of consumer goods and services. The CO2 Calculator estimates your consumption patterns based on your household net income and the number of people you share this income with, as there is a statistically proven link between household net income and the CO2 footprint of that household\'s consumption. Those who have more money at their disposal can and most likely will spend more of it.
Net household income comprises the sum of money available to people living in a household after all deductions. Income includes wages and social benefits such as child benefit, care allowance, BafÖG or pension. Other sources of income such as net rental income, maintenance payments or royalties are also taken into account. Deductions are, for example, taxes on salaries as well as capital gains taxes, church taxes and social security contributions. Rent, credit debts, food costs or private insurance are not deducted. It is important that this household net income is available to the persons jointly. While a family of four has one net household income, a shared apartment with four members usually has four net household incomes, since the income of one person cannot be spent by the other.
A climate-friendly financial investment enables other people or organisations to make investments that can reduce CO2 emissions. In this way, your money can help finance the energy transition and thus reduce other people's CO2 emissions. We therefore speak here of "CO2 avoidance by others", which we also show separately. Calculating the climate impact of financial investments is very difficult, which is why the average value used here should only be understood as a rough estimate.
An offset of CO2 is a donation for climate protection projects that would not be realised without such donations. Accordingly, it does not reduce your footprint, but saves CO2 elsewhere, which is why we record offsetting as "avoidance by others". Voluntary offsets are often offered in connection with air travel. In principle, however, offset service providers also offer flat-rate offsetting of a freely selectable amount of CO2. For example, you can offset your entire CO2 footprint.
Purchasing behaviour: Depending on what you spend your money on, your expenditure causes different levels of greenhouse gas emissions. This is because the production and transport of products emit greenhouse gases. If you repair things, share them and make sure that products have a long shelf life, you cause fewer emissions. Long periods of use for appliances reduce the relative energy input required for their manufacture. Short-term and impulsive buying behaviour, on the other hand, leads to more consumption and thus more emissions.
Detailed information by product category: You can provide detailed information for selected product categories. These details overwrite the previous estimate based on income and purchasing behaviour for this one product category.
My carbon scenario
In your carbon scenario you can now look to the future. Answer questions about changes you're planning, new habits and even investments. On the basis of your carbon balance today the projections are carried out, up to what the German average would be in 2050.
Today
Your carbon scenario picks up where you've left off in your carbon balance.
Short-term
Personal changes in the next 5 years are reflected in your short term scenario.Medium-term
A more climate-friendly society and your personal changes then lead to a medium-term scenario covering the next 10 to 15 years.Germany 2050
Your acceptance of long-term climate protection measures and the corresponding policies then lead to a projected German average value for the year 2050.Save the current status of your calculation if you want to edit it later, send it to friends or post it in a social network. The data is available for you to retrieve for a period of 18 months. If you do not retrieve the data during this period, it will be deleted.