Measure Your Carbon Footprint to Act Where It Matters
A carbon footprint measures the climate impact of human activities and helps identify practical priorities for action.
You cannot manage what you do not measure. A carbon footprint expresses all greenhouse gases emitted by our activities in tonnes of CO2 equivalent, both directly through driving and heating and indirectly through everything we buy and consume.
What measurement reveals
The calculation can be surprising. The largest sources are not always those people expect:
- Transport: flying and driving
- Food: red meat
- Housing: fossil-fuel heating
- Consumer goods
- Unplugging chargers
- Other highly visible small actions with no measurable effect
Measurement creates priorities, helping people act where each effort has a real effect.
Individual and structural action
Individual footprints have limits. A large share of emissions depends on infrastructure and collective choices, including public transport, the electricity mix, building renovation and company practices.
The tool remains valuable because it informs personal decisions about mobility, food and durable purchases, while supporting demands for structural changes that make low-carbon lifestyles accessible to everyone.
- The reference objective is about 2 t of CO2e per person per year, compared with an average of 8.2 t in France in 2024.
- Transport, food and housing dominate the footprint, not symbolic small actions.
- Individual measurement is most useful when combined with collective transformation.