The change has begun.
 
 
 

General

What is your personal natural resource consumption? Check it out with this simple test and continue to accomplish Do's, simple everyday eco-actions. It's so easy you probably start wonder like everyone else here: why didn't I do this before? You're the one - be a part of the change.

Select your country
 
Gender
 
Number of persons in household
O
 

Housing

<span>Housing</span>Please indicate the total living space of your home. The calculator will divide the total consumption by number of persons in your household.<br /><br />House refers to a detached house with its own yard. Usually this type of houses are single family homes. Flat means an apartment in a block of flats. A row house is a residential building that includes several apartments attached to each other. Usually apartments in row houses have one or two storeys. Apartments might also have small yards.<br /><br />Types of houses and apartments vary, but choose the type of housing you find closest to your own.
Housing type HouseFlatRow house
 
Living space (m2)
 

Food and beverages

<span>Food and beverages</span>Please indicate your personal consumption of food and beverages in the fields provided.<br /><br />Especially meat and dairy products make your ecological backpack heavy. This is why meat consumption is asked about in this questionnaire. Meat products include beef, pork, mutton, poultry and other meat products. Fish and game meat from nearby areas doesn’t need to be taken into account but vegetarian and vegan diets are assumed to be totally meat free. The ecological backpack of food and beverages is easy to lighten, because we make a choice what to eat and drink every day.<br /><br />Also coffee and tea drinking consume natural resources. Coffee and tea make a share from a few to ten percent in your daily ecological backpack of food and beverages. Think what a difference you make if you drink less coffee or tea. Especially coffee has a heavy ecological burden and even having a cup of tea instead of coffee has an affect. <br /><br />One cup is 200 ml of readymade drink.
Do you eat meat?
 
How many cups of coffee you drink in a day? (one cup is 200 ml)
O
 
How many cups of tea do you drink per day? (one cup is 200 ml)
O
 
How many beverage cans do you buy in a week?
O
 

Mobility

<span>Mobility</span>Take into account both travel related to every day routines and infrequent longer travel like holiday trips. Daily commuting from home to work must be taken into account, but business trips that are paid by the employer need not to be included. Business trips should be included in the ecological backpacks of products and services. For instance, a truck driver doesn’t need to take into account kilometers driven while on duty because this burden is included in the backpacks of the products transported.<br /><br />Kilometers traveled by passenger car include both kilometers as a driver and as a passenger. The calculator takes into account that several persons might be sharing a ride. If you keep a record of annual kilometers driven it is good to check your notes. When we were testing the calculator we noticed that it is very easy to underestimate the total number of kilometers.<br /><br />Rail transport has been divided into local rail transport, including local train, metro, tram and transport by long distance trains. Local rail transport refers to trips made within a city region and for which a specific regional ticket might be available. Definitions of short and long haul rail transport can vary between countries and regions, choose the option you find to be closer to your transport choice.<br /><br />Bus transport includes both short and long haul trips. <br /><br />Bicycle use, like all other transport modes, requires a static infrastructure. Actually the ecological backpack of the bicycle itself is very small compared to the resource use of road infrastructure. Natural resources are needed to build and maintain roads, highways, railways, ports and stations. When the ecological backpacks of passenger or goods transport are calculated the resource consumption of infrastructure is divided equally among users. Infrastructure is included in estimations of all modes of passenger transport.<br /><br />One might wonder why infrastructure must be taken into account since roads and railways are already there. However, increase in car use and other modes of mobility increases the pressure to expand the road network and build more highways etc. It is also evident that the modern transport system couldn’t exist without the static infrastructure, and this is the reason why it must be included when natural resource use of mobility is estimated.<br /><br />Air travel is measured by hours of flying during one year. Note that as in the cases of all other transport modes also here you can exclude business trips paid by your employer.
Car
O
 
Bus
O
 
Local rail transportation
O
 
Train
O
 
Bike
O
 
Airplane
O
 

Mobility

<span>Mobility</span>Take into account both travel related to every day routines and infrequent longer travel like holiday trips. Daily commuting from home to work must be taken into account, but business trips that are paid by the employer need not to be included. Business trips should be included in the ecological backpacks of products and services. For instance, a truck driver doesn’t need to take into account kilometers driven while on duty because this burden is included in the backpacks of the products transported.<br /><br />Kilometers traveled by passenger car include both kilometers as a driver and as a passenger. The calculator takes into account that several persons might be sharing a ride. If you keep a record of annual kilometers driven it is good to check your notes. When we were testing the calculator we noticed that it is very easy to underestimate the total number of kilometers.<br /><br />Rail transport has been divided into local rail transport, including local train, metro, tram and transport by long distance trains. Local rail transport refers to trips made within a city region and for which a specific regional ticket might be available. Definitions of short and long haul rail transport can vary between countries and regions, choose the option you find to be closer to your transport choice.<br /><br />Bus transport includes both short and long haul trips. <br /><br />Bicycle use, like all other transport modes, requires a static infrastructure. Actually the ecological backpack of the bicycle itself is very small compared to the resource use of road infrastructure. Natural resources are needed to build and maintain roads, highways, railways, ports and stations. When the ecological backpacks of passenger or goods transport are calculated the resource consumption of infrastructure is divided equally among users. Infrastructure is included in estimations of all modes of passenger transport.<br /><br />One might wonder why infrastructure must be taken into account since roads and railways are already there. However, increase in car use and other modes of mobility increases the pressure to expand the road network and build more highways etc. It is also evident that the modern transport system couldn’t exist without the static infrastructure, and this is the reason why it must be included when natural resource use of mobility is estimated.<br /><br />Air travel is measured by hours of flying during one year. Note that as in the cases of all other transport modes also here you can exclude business trips paid by your employer.
Car
O
 
Bus
O
 
Local rail transportation
O
 
Train
O
 
Bike
O
 
Airplane
O
 

Consumer goods

<span>Household goods and appliances</span>In this section, you’re asked about the total number of some electronic appliances in your household. The calculator will divide the ecological backpack of devices equally among household members. <br /><br />Some household appliances found nearly in every home, like refrigerator and oven are automatically calculated according to the living space and number of persons in your household. Also furniture and miscellaneous goods are taken into account this way. Energy consumption of appliances is calculated in the energy section. <br /><br />Clothes and jewellery refer to your personal clothes shopping and jewellery ownership. Clothes also include shoes but not underwear and socks. In case of jewellery precious metals refer here to gold, silver, platinum, diamonds and brass. Second hand and inherited jewellery does not need to be taken account since the ecological backpack of second hand items falls on the first user. Related to clothes shopping, the share of second hand clothes is also asked.

Electronic appliances in your household

mobile
pieces
 
computer
pieces
 
laptop
pieces
 
tv
pieces
 
stereo
pieces
 
console
pieces
 
How many pieces of clothing do you buy for a year? (underwear not included)
O
 
How often do you buy 2nd hand clothes?
Never
Sometimes
Every second time
Always
 
Precious metals/ jewellery
O
 

Energy

<span>Energy</span>Default values in the fields are based on average figures of electricity and heating energy use in the European Union. The type of housing, the living space of your home and the number of household members are taken into account. If you know more exact total figures of electricity and heating energy consumption, use them since values vary from region to region and family to family. In the end, the calculator will divide the total consumption equally among household members. <br /><br />Natural resource consumption of energy use does not only depend on the amount of energy consumed but also on the type of it. If you have made a contract with your electricity supplier of electricity produced with only wind power choose the option ”windpower”. ”Other ecological electricity” refers to electricity certified with an eco-label and produced with some other sort of combination of renewable energy than wind power. If you have not made a contract of wind power or other type of eco-labeled electricity, choose the ”average” option and calculation is based on average natural resource consumption of electricity production in OECD-countries. <br /><br />Choose the main energy used in your household for heating from the list provided. If electrical heating is used in your household, insert the total amount of electricity consumed for both heating and appliance use in the field of annual electricity consumption. In this case you should insert zero in the field of heating energy consumption to avoid double counting the heating energy use. If the figure of electricity consumption for heating and other purposes is not known you can use the provided average values in both fields.
Choose type of electricity used in your household Average Windpower Other ecological electricity
 
Annual electricity consumption in your household (kWh)
O
 
 Use EU average
Heating energy used in your household
 
Annual consumption of heating energy in your household
kWh
 
Use average
Please make sure that you enter correctly the total amount of electricity consumed. If you cannot separate consumption for heating and other purposes you may enter the total figure in either one of the fields.