What Is A Carbon Footprint?

A carbon footprint represents the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by goods or services that we use or consume in the United Kingdom.

For petrol, diesel or hybrid internal combustion engines the UK CO2 is measured officially in Grammes Per Kilometre ('GP/Km') travelled.

We then convert a vehicle's CO2 test results into Grammes Per Mile, then multiply this value by the user's annual mileage to get the tonnes of CO2 produced by a car or van.

How Is CO2 Measured?

CO2 is measured by weight in kilogrammes or metric tonnes. A metric tonne is 1,000 kilogrammes, or about 2,205lbs (UK).

Remember that other goods and services produce CO2 as well as vehicles with an internal combustion engine, and the figures produced by our carbon footprint calculator only relate to those for cars and vans.

Keep in mind too that the energy used to recharge an electric vehicle (or a plug-in hybrid) may have been generated by a power station.

A UK power station typically burns fossil fuels in the form of hydrocarbons (e.g. usually in the form of gas). This means CO2 could still be produced in the recharging of an electric car or van and in plug-in hybrids when they are recharged too.

How Do We Calculate CO2 In The UK?

Typically we will have data on a vehicle's CO2 output as measured under the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure (or 'WLTP').

The WLTP produces data on the CO2 output of cars measured in what's known as a 'Combined' cycle.

The 'Combined' cycle represents a mixture of driving in urban, suburban, rural and motorway conditions.

For some new vehicles we also have the results for the individual mileage categories (e.g. urban, suburban, etc).

For vehicles with that additional data you can calculate the CO2 output for each type of driving.

This reflects the mix of mileage you actually travel each year and will help make the calculation more accurate for you.

We'll automatically display the option to separate your mileage into CO2 cycles when the vehicle CO2 data is available.

Electric Cars And Vans

For electric cars and vans we calculate the CO2 produced when recharging the vehicle.

We use figures from the UK's power stations on the percentage of electricity generated by fossil fuels (mainly by gas).

Typically at the moment that's about 60% of electricity that's generated using fossil fuels.

You can change this if you use less fossil fuel, perhaps because you have a renewalbe energy tarrif or have solar panels or a wind turbines to power the recharge of your electric car or van.

What Do You Get In Our Calculations?

We calculate the amount of CO2 for your selected car (or the comparison results) and therefore the factors influencing global warming.

We typically give you the CO2 output of a selected vehicle in metric tonnes, so you can compare it to others.

For electric cars and vans we give the CO2 output in kilogrammes ('kgs') as well, since the CO2 output is typically much lower than for petrol, diesel or hybrid vehicles.

Getting Started

To begin your carbon footprint calculation click on the links below for individual cars or vans.

Remember too that you can also compare cars or vans side-by-side with petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric vehicles to see the difference in CO2 production.