Frequently asked questions

A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas released because of what you do, use and buy, counted in kilograms or tonnes of CO2 equivalent. It includes fuel you burn yourself, such as petrol and LPG, and emissions hidden in the electricity, food and goods you use.

India emitted about 2.2 tonnes of CO2 per person from fossil fuels and industry in 2024, against a world average of about 4.7 tonnes (Our World in Data, from Global Carbon Budget 2025). This figure leaves out methane and nitrous oxide and hides large differences between city and village households.

A carbon footprint is usually measured in kilograms or tonnes of CO2 equivalent (kg CO2e or t CO2e) for a fixed period, often one year. CO2e lets different gases such as methane and nitrous oxide be added together with carbon dioxide.

Not exactly: an emission is a single release of gas, while a carbon footprint is the total of all emissions linked to a person, company or product, including indirect ones. For example, your footprint includes emissions at the power plant that made your electricity.

For many urban households, grid electricity is one of the biggest parts, because most Indian electricity is still made from coal, followed by travel and cooking fuel. The exact order depends on how much you use air conditioners, cars and flights.

No fixed number of trees cancels a fixed footprint, because how much carbon a tree stores depends on species, age, soil, rainfall and survival. Trees remove carbon dioxide from the air, which is valuable, but cutting your own emissions is a separate and more certain step.

Some do: SEBI requires the top 1,000 listed companies by market value to file a Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR), which asks for scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Most smaller and unlisted companies report only voluntarily or when large customers ask for it.

India's footprint per person is low, at about 2.2 tonnes of CO2 in 2024 compared with about 14.2 tonnes in the United States, but its total is large because of its population. India's total greenhouse gas emissions were 3,396 million tonnes CO2e in 2022, excluding land use and forests (BTR-1).