Carbon Calculators: Data Tools for the Climate Crisis
This talk took place at SPACE4, a co-op that builds websites and digital tools for social good.
Islington Council Carbon Calculator
Alex Moate, who works in the Digital Engagement team at Islington Council, and Polly Robbins from Outlandish collaborated to build a Carbon Calculator for Islington Council, as part of Islington Council’s plan to become a net-zero borough by 2030. Islington is among the leading boroughs that have adopted a community wealth-building agenda. Their approach is to purchase as much as possible from local suppliers and producers, including school dinners.
Islington Council declared a climate emergency in June 2019 and created Vision 2040 to guide its efforts in becoming a net-zero borough. They discovered that 91% of their carbon emissions were produced locally, making a carbon calculator an essential tool that would guide local residents and organisations in reducing carbon emissions.
Islington Council’s energy team developed the questions for the carbon calculator and Outlandish built the tool. The online, web-based tool is user-friendly, asking a series of questions to provide a carbon score for residents and organizations to identify their carbon footprint. The supporting website was designed and built in-house.
Initially, the carbon calculator was a complicated process, requiring multiple data journeys. Outlandish simplified the process and removed the complexities to make it more accessible to users. Islington Council initially suggested a login process, but Outlandish reduced the cost by setting up a magic link.
The questions in the app for residents are straightforward, covering topics such as heating type, recycling habits, and energy-saving practices, including leaving equipment on standby and turning off lights when not in the room. The tool then offers personalized suggestions on how to reduce their carbon footprint.
The tool has been a hit, with 290 residents using it to calculate their carbon footprint and make pledges to reduce it. The most popular pledges included turning off equipment and opting to travel by Eurostar instead of flying.
Overall, the collaboration between Islington Council and Outlandish shows that a simple online tool can make a significant impact in promoting a greener future.
Farm Carbon Calculator
Ben Philps is part of the team at Creative Coop, a design studio specializing in branding, design, and web development. They recently built a Farm Carbon Calculator, which allows farmers to calculate the carbon emissions of their farms.
The first carbon calculator was created in 2009 by Mukti, who had initially designed a calculator for holiday carbon emissions. It was a single web page that helped visitors calculate their carbon emissions. Mukti then introduced Jonathan, who had a comprehensive spreadsheet with valuable intellectual property and carbon calculations. He wanted to put it online to allow farmers to calculate their farm’s carbon emissions. The first version was built in Drupal 6 in 2011. Subsequent versions had better data presentation and added charges.
In 2017, Jonathan and Adam requested a more modern version of the carbon calculator. The subsequent versions included improved user experience for entering and editing emissions, with changes in data architecture and improved performance. Today, the Farm Carbon Calculator is part of the Farm Carbon Toolkit website. The current version generates reports across multiple farms and allows users to add materials such as fuels, inventory, crops, inputs, livestock, waste, distribution, sequestration, and processing. The tool provides live updates on the emissions calculation as users move through the site. Users can see their carbon balance and levels of confidence in the calculation based on the amount of data entered. The tool also offers benchmarking against similar farms and comparisons against different reports to see how changes in their business will affect carbon emissions.
Overall, the Farm Carbon Calculator built by Creative Coop has been a crucial tool for farmers looking to measure and reduce their carbon emissions. By offering live updates and benchmarking features, the tool has helped farmers make informed decisions about their businesses and reduce their carbon footprint.
