Now You Can Offset Your Travel as part of Sidelining Carbon

Cool Effect harnessed the EPA’s most recently established emission factor data (2018) and approximated flight lengths from credible online sources. In order to estimate the total metric tonnage of greenhouse gas emissions per flight, Cool Effect chose to combine emissions of carbon dioxide (1:1), methane (25:1) and nitrous oxide (298:1) and adjust for the distinct global warming potential of each gas.

Cool Effect then applied these values over three different flight-length categories: Short, Medium and Long Haul. The purposeful inclusion of methane and nitrous oxide distinguishes this Flight Emissions Calculator from other sources, which often include solely carbon dioxide in their calculations.

Rounded to the nearest 0.01 tonnes, the Cool Effect Flight Emissions Calculator is meant to provide the environmentally-conscious flyer with sound knowledge on which to base each decision to offset.

While the Cool Effect Flight Emissions Calculator is one viable resource, there are many other credible emission calculators out there to explore, such as ICAO’s Flight Calculator, Virgin Atlantic’s Carbon Neutral Calculator, or the TerraPass Carbon Footprint Calculator. Each source will likely result in slightly different emissions estimates due to the host of responsible assumptions that must be made when considering the impacts of air travel.

By selecting a length of flight and purchasing carbon credits equivalent to its estimated emissions, you are helping to compensate for the effect your flight has on the planet. More than 90% of your donation goes to support the 14 projects listed on the Cool Effect platform that reduce or prevent emissions.

At the end of the day, the idea is simple: Do what you can, anything that keeps the planet cooler helps! If your flight length falls between two options, Cool Effect humbly challenges you to round up! Clearly, the planet is heating up and Mother Earth appreciates every tonne that helps to keep her cool!

Cool Effect Vehicle Emission Calculator

With both individuals and clients increasingly interested in reducing their carbon footprints related to vehicle usage, Cool Effect designed a calculator to estimate and offset the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by different types of vehicles. Detailed vehicle emission calculators exist in many places online where users enter the make, model, year, engine size, and drive type of their car or truck, but the level of data input required to reach a simple footprint is overwhelming.

The calculator categorizes vehicle usage using two simplifying key principles: 1) transparency about the design of the technical work, including assumptions and key variables, 2) conservatively overestimating rather than underestimating the GHG emissions from the vehicle usage using EPA data as a basis.

The calculator uses two data entries:

1. User data entry

This is a clear display of the overall footprint for vehicle usage by category, class, and mileage.

This calculator requires three simple inputs:

Step One: Is the vehicle is light duty or heavy duty? Step Two: What class of vehicle? Step Three: The annual mileage of the vehicle in question?

Step One: The first distinction is made between light duty and heavy-duty vehicles. • Light duty vehicles include all cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks. This category includes any vehicle that can be purchased at a dealership. • Heavy duty vehicles include buses, commercial trucks, motorhomes, delivery vans, and transit vehicles. These will all be detailed further in the subsequent sections.

Step Two: The user then chooses what class of vehicle is being footprinted—e.g., a compact, a minivan, a mid size sedan/wagon, etc. These classes are chosen based on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data. The calculator has associated emission factors for each of these.

Step Three: The user enters the annual mileage.

Result: The calculator outputs the footprint in tonnes of CO2 per year.

2. Backend

Embedded in the calculator is a data reference which is the main formula of the calculator. The calculator uses a function to return an emission factor when the frontend inputs a certain vehicle class. The emission factors are calculated with the knowledge that the combustion of a gallon of gasoline produces 8,878 g CO2; a gallon of diesel fuel produces 10,084 g CO2 when burnt. Heavy-duty vehicles are assumed to burn diesel fuel. Light-duty vehicles are assumed to burn gasoline. (Note: although there are a few select diesel-burning cars on the market, when calculating fleet averages from the EPA vehicle database, the difference is insignificant.) The fuel economy figures come from the following sheets.