If you’ve ever wondered what it really means to “shrink your carbon footprint,” you’ll find the answer on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. A Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator has been posted on the site that translates measures of carbon dioxide and other emissions into concrete, everyday terms.
Say, for example, that you implement a lighting retrofit project that reduces your carbon dioxide emissions by 500,000 pounds. If you plug that into the EPA calculator, you will be told that this is equivalent to:
• The CO2 emissions from 44.5 passenger vehicles
• The CO2 emissions from 25,426 gallons of gasoline consumed
• The CO2 emissions from 527 barrels of oil consumed
• The CO2 emissions from 3 tanker trucks’ worth of gasoline
• The electricity use of 28.3 homes for one year
• Carbon sequestered (removed from the atmosphere) by 5,815 tree seedlings grown for ten years
• Carbon sequestered annually by 48.4 acres of pine or fir forests
• Carbon sequestered annually by 2.2 acres of forest preserved from deforestation
• The CO2 emissions from 9,450 propane cylinders used for home barbecue
• The CO2 emissions from burning 1.2 rail cars worth of coal
• Greenhouse gas emissions avoided by recycling 79 tons of waste instead of sending it to the landfill
This, along with a reduction in utility bills, better light levels, and compliance with Federal energy mandates, makes a powerful argument for switching to energy efficient lighting.