Green Gown Awards 2021: Benefitting Society - University of Exeter - Finalist

Impact tool: Community Carbon Calculator

Impact, the parish-level carbon emission estimator, gives parishes and small communities usable data on their carbon emissions that is easy to interpret and easy to share. It tells users how people in the parish travel and heat their homes, and other activities in the area that contribute to the local carbon emissions total. Impact identifies the main ‘carbon impact areas’ in the parish or town - those places where focused community-based action can make the biggest contribution to cutting local emissions.

The tool includes territorial and consumption approaches to estimating carbon footprints; both provide useful information to help target local action to reduce emissions. A territorial carbon footprint includes all emissions generated within a defined geographical area, including those from industry, agriculture, and transport activities. A consumption-based footprint includes upstream and downstream emissions from residents’ consumption of manufactured goods, food, and their own transport activity, regardless of where the emissions occur.

Top 3 learnings:

• We identified the key similarities and differences between communities in terms of their impacts.
• Providing communities with tools to understand their own impacts is a catalyst for large-scale action.
• Combining resources with an external organisation resulted in improved outcomes for all, rather than competition.

Videos

• Video #1 (click to hide)