Carbon Literacy

Carbon Literacy
Raising awareness, reducing impacts
and offsetting

By Rosie Tandek, 6 Feb 2026

In this article, Travelife for Accommodation discusses what carbon literacy is, how we can all look at our personal impact and how we and businesses can help to offset carbon emissions.

By definition, carbon literacy is the awareness of climate change and the climate impacts of our everyday emissions. By understanding where our emissions come from, we can make informed choices to reduce them and, where reduction isn’t possible, offset them responsibly. Whilst the topic of climate change and carbon literacy can be confusing, this article will aim to set out why we should be carbon literate, our environmental impact and how offsetting works.

Climate change is the process of the planet’s temperature rising caused by human activity. Since the 1980s, global temperatures have increased almost every year and without action, this trend will continue. While governments and industries play a major role, everyone can make choices every day to lessen their personal impact on the environment.

According the Energy Saving Trust, in the UK, around 22% of carbon emissions come from homes. Becoming more aware of where our personal emissions come from can help us reduce and manage our impact.

Simple Ways to Reduce Your Environmental Impact

There are many everyday actions we can take to reduce our carbon footprint:

Rethink how you travel. Can you drive less or take public transport? Using 2021 estimates of carbon emissions, a petrol car journey from London to Glasgow emits 3.3 times more CO₂ per passenger than the equivalent journey by train.
Switch to low-energy lighting. Modern LED lights use 80-90% less energy than traditional light bulbs. Replacing all bulbs with LED lights could reduce carbon emissions by 65kg a year!
Reduce meat consumption. Research carried out in 2018 revealed that meat and dairy uses 83% of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. The vegetarian society states that eating vegetarian for a year could save the same amount of carbon emissions as taking a small family car off the road for six months.

Even after making changes, most of us and most businesses can’t eliminate emissions entirely. This is where carbon offsetting comes in to address the emissions that remain.

What is Carbon Offsetting?

There are often lots of definitions and terms used when talking about offsetting. Carbon offsetting involves reducing or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to compensate for emissions made elsewhere.

Carbon offset or offset credits are what businesses and individuals can purchase to compensate for emissions they cannot avoid. While many offsetting schemes are targeted at businesses due to their larger impact, individuals can also take part by supporting certified offsetting projects.

Offsetting schemes allow contributions to projects such as reducing deforestation to implementing clean energy technologies, which in turn help to balance out everyone’s carbon footprint.

Carbon Sequestration and Offset Projects

Offsetting projects should use methods that remove carbon from the atmosphere and, where it cannot be used for another purpose, the carbon should be stored. The process of removing carbon for storage is known as ‘sequestering' or 'carbon sequestration' e.g.

Natural processes

Forests, bogs, swamps and peat all capture carbon naturally then either use it for biological processes (e.g. plants use carbon for photosynthesis) or store it for long periods of time so that it is gradually released, often over thousands of years. The oceans also capture and store carbon.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS)

This is when people capture the carbon dioxide that is produced during manufacturing or energy production processes, then inject it deep under the Earth’s surface where it is stored permanently and kept out of the atmosphere.

Use of carbon to produce other materials

This is possible when certain industries can use carbon dioxide to produce materials that are used in manufacturing processes. For example, graphene is a very light and strong material often used to produce technology such as mobile phones and computers.

Captured carbon dioxide can be used to produce graphene, keeping it out of the atmosphere.

As individuals, we can support carbon removal by investing in certified projects, backing nature-based solutions such as reforestation or peatland restoration, or choosing renewable energy options that help reduce our overall footprint

Measuring Your Carbon Footprint

Before offsetting, it’s helpful to understand the size of your own carbon footprint. We can think of our carbon footprint as our own mark on the planet, but by definition it is the amount of greenhouse gases we produce in units of carbon dioxide.

There are numerous carbon calculators online, however, Alexandra Shimo-Barry (author of ‘The Environment Equation’) has created a formula we all can use:

Multiply your monthly electric bill by 105

Multiply your monthly gas bill by 105

Multiply your monthly oil bill by 113

Multiply your total yearly mileage on your car by .79

Multiply the number of flights you’ve taken in the past year (4 hours or less) by 1,100

Multiply the number of flights you’ve taken in the past year (4 hours or more) by 4,400

Add 184 if you do NOT recycle newspaper

Add 166 if you do NOT recycle aluminium and tin

Add 1-8 together for your total carbon footprint

Add all figures together to estimate your annual carbon footprint (in pounds of CO₂).

A low carbon footprint is between 6,000-15,999 lbs per year, whereas 16,000-22,000 lbs per year is considered average.

Offsetting should always be seen as a supplementary step not a substitute for reducing emissions wherever possible. No matter what our score is, becoming more aware of our personal impact is a great start! By reducing where we can and offsetting responsibly, both individuals and businesses can play a meaningful role in tackling climate change.