March 2022
Intermediate to advanced
400 pages
8h 1m
English
‘A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product.’ It is calculated by summing the emissions resulting from every stage of a product or service's lifetime (material production, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life). Throughout a product's lifetime, or life cycle, different greenhouse gases GHGs may be emitted, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), each with a greater or lesser ability to trap heat in the atmosphere. These differences are accounted for by calculating the global warming potential (GWP) of each gas in units of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e), giving carbon footprints a single unit for easy comparison.