The document analyzes and compares three carbon footprint calculators from the EPA, Berkeley CoolClimate, and the Nature Conservancy. It finds that the Berkeley calculator estimates the largest footprint while the EPA estimates the smallest. The Nature Conservancy calculator is the most user-friendly. All three consider factors like location, vehicle use, and household size but some generalize more than others. Designers need to consider their specific audience and no single calculator can be perfect.

1. Carbon Calculators
Group 2

2. The Calculators We Chose
 Environmental Protection Agency
 Berkeley CoolClimate
 Nature Conservancy
These calculators seemed to be the most in-
depth and represented different types of
organizations (a government agency,
university, and an environmental
organization)

3. Differences in Criteria
 The Berkeley CoolClimate calculator
seems to give us the largest carbon
footprint.
 Motivations: expand knowledge and
awareness of sources of carbon emissions
 Target population: Academics,
intellectuals, persons seeking to gain
further information about the
environmental problem

4. Differences in Criteria
 The E.P.A., surprisingly, seemed to give us the
smallest footprint of all the calculators.
 Motivations: government institution, neutrality,
mobilize others to support the E.P.A., provide
simple/easy/cheap ways to reduce their carbon
footprint
 Target Population: persons/businesses seriously
seeking to gain real information about their
carbon footprint and practical ways on how to
lower it.

5. Differences in Criteria
 The Nature Conservancy was the most user-
friendly out of all of the calculators.
 Motivations: increase awareness of the
environmental problem among people who have
not necessarily been exposed to such
information, easy-to-use, self-promotion
 Target Population: everyday people, people
relatively new to the environmental movement,
younger people

6. Criteria Commonalities
 All of the calculators took into
consideration:
 The state/region you lived
 Car mileage / # of miles driven
 People in household

7. Trade-offs
 Some calculators show the impact of
changes when the user modifies behavior,
which allow people to alter their behavior
based on the results.
 Some calculators generalize for ease of
use, but sacrifice specificity and accuracy,
for example, the Nature Conservancy.

8. Conclusions
 Designers need to keep in mind that there are lots of
calculators already out there; need to consider your
specific audience and their needs
 Can’t design one ‘perfect’/stable calculator
 Making it clear how many variables are present in
these calculations would be helpful
 None of the calculators said how accurate they were; implied
high accuracy even if it was impossible based on given data
 Stable Technology? Based on trade-off options and
different criteria, no