One of the many aspects travel gets flogged over is its carbon emissions. If you’d like to contribute to setting the planet on fire, getting on a plane works. What about if you don’t? What about if you’d prefer to reduce your emissions? Skipping domestic flights is the obvious first step, but what next? With this in mind, I decided to track my carbon emissions over my recent three-week trip to Vietnam. Here’s what I found.
Before anything, I needed to decide what I should measure. Transport was a no-brainer, but what about food and accommodation? Although domestic flights removed from the equation, the other two categories can both be significant contributors. But how significant? Well, it depends. How do you travel? What do you eat and drink? Where do you stay? As it turns out, no two travelers are the same.
The two systems I tried out were the Capture app and the Path Net Zero calculator. While Capture has some issues, it is more appropriate for travelers looking to measure their carbon emissions. If you’re a tour company wanting to figure out the emissions of a trip, Path Net Zero is by far the better option. I used Capture during my trip while by the end of it, inputted the data from Capture into Path Net Zero.
The Capture app (Source: Stuart McDonald)
There are some important differences between the two. Capture doesn’t include accommodation while Path Net Zero does and each takes a different approach to food. You can calculate the emissions from transport by distance or time, and I used time for both systems. However, the results were often quite different.
Calculating carbon footprint using Path Net Zero (Source: Stuart McDonald)
For example, Capture calculated 1,229.80 kilograms for my two flights while Path Net Zero came up with 824.52 kilograms. This highlighted how tricky flying can be. How full was the flight? What class was flown as Path Net Zero allowed me to select class while Capture doesn’t. What type of plane was it? How was the weather? These can all impact the amount of emissions allocated.