How to calculate your carbon footprint (for Indian households)
A step-by-step method for Indian households: multiply what you use (electricity units, LPG, fuel, flights, food) by a sourced emission factor, add it up, and understand how uncertain the answer is.
How accurate is your result?
Treat your result as an estimate. The main sources of uncertainty are:
- Electricity: the CEA factor is a national annual average per unit fed into the grid. It does not show state differences, time of day, or transmission and distribution losses before power reaches your meter.
- Fuels: IPCC default values come with ranges. For example, the net calorific value of LPG ranges from 44.8 to 52.2 terajoules per thousand tonnes around the 47.3 default.
- Vehicles: per-km factors assume 2015 mileage figures. Your own fuel records are better.
- Flights: results change with aircraft, load and whether non-CO2 effects are included.
- Food: global averages hide very large farm-to-farm differences.
- CO2 and CO2e mixed: the example adds CO2 from energy and CO2e from flights and food, which is common but should be stated.
Good practice: write down each factor with its source and year, round the total (say "about 6 tonnes"), and repeat the same method every year so you can see real change. If your company asks for commuting or travel data, it will use the GHG Protocol and Scope 3 methods, which are explained in our article on Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
Sources: Central Electricity Authority, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, User Guide Version 22.0 (August 2026); Central Electricity Authority, CO2 Baseline Database User Guide Version 21.0 (November 2025); Central Electricity Authority, CO2 Baseline Database User Guide Version 20.0 (December 2024); 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Volume 2 Energy, Chapter 1; 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Volume 5 Waste; India GHG Program (WRI India, CII, TERI), India Specific Road Transport Emission Factors, Version 1.0 (2015); Bharat Petroleum, Natural Gas Conversions (reproducing PPAC conversion basis); ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and methodology; Our World in Data, Which form of transport has the smallest carbon footprint? (UK DESNZ 2022 conversion factors); Our World in Data, Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product (Poore and Nemecek 2018, Science); Our World in Data, You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local; Our World in Data, CO2 emissions per capita (Global Carbon Budget)
This article was prepared with AI assistance and checked by the GreenEye team against the sources shown in each section.
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