Analysing the indicators and the associated recommendations of household emission calculators

Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are some of the most noted topics of the last years. Carbon footprint calculators provide an interesting solution when it comes to informing people about the above topic. These calculators try to estimate the carbon footprint, the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions, based on information provided by the user that is related to various activities that may result in creating emissions. Some of the calculators also provide recommendations to the users, based on their results, in order to reduce their carbon emissions. This study provides a comparative analysis of the indicators used for calculating carbon footprint in available household calculators, as well as the recommendations provided for the users to reduce their footprint. The goal of this paper is to present the current state of household carbon footprint calculators regarding the data they require from their users in order for them to calculate their carbon footprint and any recommendation they may provide based on the results. This is achieved by analyzing a list of carbon footprint calculators that are freely available online and, specifically, the domains and indicators each calculator uses, along with the associated resulting recommendations.