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Energy & Renewables vocabulary · Emissions and Energy Policy

Carbon footprint

Meaning in energy & renewables, with examples

/ˌkɑːrbən ˈfʊtprɪnt/nounCore term

In energy & renewables, carbon footprint means: The total amount of greenhouse gases caused directly and indirectly by a person, product, company or event, expressed in tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

In Turkish: karbon ayak izi

How it is used

Common in sustainability reports, marketing and supplier questionnaires. You calculate, measure, reduce or shrink a carbon footprint. European buyers increasingly ask suppliers for the footprint of each product.

Example sentences

  1. Our customer in Germany asked for the carbon footprint of each product we ship.

  2. Buying renewable electricity cut our office's carbon footprint by 40 percent.

Common collocations

  • reduce your carbon footprint
  • calculate the carbon footprint
  • product carbon footprint
  • carbon footprint report
  • carbon emissionsCarbon dioxide released into the air, mainly by burning coal, oil and gas. The term is often used loosely for all greenhouse gas emissions.
  • greenhouse gasA gas in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, methane or nitrous oxide, that traps heat and contributes to global warming.
  • guarantee of originAn electronic certificate proving that one MWh of electricity was produced from a specific, usually renewable, source. Companies use them to back up claims of using green power.
  • net zeroA state in which the greenhouse gases a country or company puts into the air are balanced by the amount it removes, so that its overall contribution is zero.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Emissions and Energy Policy

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