What is a carbon footprint?
A plain guide to what a carbon footprint is, what it includes, how big the average Indian footprint is, and what the number can and cannot tell you.
Why does knowing your carbon footprint matter?
A footprint is useful because it shows where the biggest sources are. Most people guess wrong: they worry about small items and miss large ones such as air conditioning, car travel or flights. A company may focus on office lights while most of its footprint sits in the raw materials it buys.
The wider reason is the scale of the cuts needed. The IPCC (AR6 Working Group III, Summary for Policymakers, 2022) found that pathways limiting warming to 1.5°C need global greenhouse gas emissions to fall by about 43% from 2019 levels by 2030. India has announced a goal of net zero emissions by 2070 (as stated in India's BTR-1). Measuring footprints is the first step for anyone who wants to contribute.
Sources: IPCC AR6 Working Group III, Annex I: Glossary (2022); IPCC AR6 Working Group III, Summary for Policymakers (2022); Our World in Data, CO2 emissions per capita (Global Carbon Budget 2025); Our World in Data, India CO2 country profile; MoEFCC, India First Biennial Transparency Report (BTR-1) to the UNFCCC; MoEFCC, India Fourth Biennial Update Report (BUR-4), December 2024; 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Volume 2, Chapter 1; GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (Revised Edition); SEBI circular on Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting, May 2021; Central Electricity Authority, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, User Guide Version 22.0 (August 2026)
This article was prepared with AI assistance and checked by the GreenEye team against the sources shown in each section.
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