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Flight Carbon Calculator

Carbon offsets directly support community-driven activities that protect and restore critical forests around the world. These forests:

  • Absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

  • Conserve wildlife

  • Sustain livelihoods for millions of people in Kenya

  • Help indigenous Kenyan communities build resilience to climate change

By calculating the climate impact of your flight, you can retire verified carbon credits and directly support community-driven activities that protect and restore critical forests around the world.

Flight Carbon Calculator

Your Trip

Here is the footprint of your flight and how you can neutralize your impact on the climate.

tons of carbon dioxide

equals

in carbon offsets

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Flight Carbon Calculator

By calculating the climate impact of your flight, you can retire verified carbon credits and directly support community-driven activities that protect and restore critical forests around the world.

What are Carbon Credits?

Carbon credits empower local communities to protect forests.

A carbon offset – or carbon credit – is a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to compensate for emissions made somewhere else. Credits are traceable, tradable and finite: When they are purchased by airline passengers, they are retired forever. This revenue funds activities that protect or restore forests, often supporting local communities with alternative livelihood opportunities that keep trees standing, and it helps fund programs to do so in perpetuity.

Nature can provide at least 30 percent of the mitigation action needed to limit global warming. Currently, the world’s forests store more carbon than is in the entire atmosphere.

Where Will My Donation Go?

Your donation will be used to retire verified carbon offsets by conserving forests around the world.

Protects Forests

The purchase of certified carbon offsets helps protect forests around the world vital to local communities as well as to climate change mitigation. Funds will support the recruitment and training of local rangers, construction of new ranger stations, new communication and monitoring equipment, programs to convert illegal loggers to eco-entrepreneurs, and improving roads for rangers and tourists.

Empowers communities

The goal of validated and verified carbon programs is to improve the well-being of resident communities by enabling the sustainable use of nature and by maintaining healthy ecosystems. Funds from carbon credits are used to improve health care facilities and schools, start local environmental education programs, and support local income-generating activities that promote conservation, such as ecotourism, tree nurseries, beekeeping and sustainable crafts.

Protects critical wildlife

The purchase of certified carbon credits helps protect forests that are home to globally significant biodiversity — including many plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. Funds help to implement endangered species management strategies, pay for additional camera traps for wildlife monitoring, and install fences where necessary to reduce human-wildlife conflict.

Carbon Credits in Action

Funding from carbon credits protects forests and benefits local communities.

Alto Mayo, Peru

In Alto Mayo, carbon credits provide essential funding for forest management, including technical assistance and advice on the ground to transform illegal loggers into organic coffee farmers and eco-entrepreneurs. Communities also receive fuel-efficient cookstoves, access to improved social services, and direct technical assistance aimed at improving ecological health and crop yields.

Chyulu Hills, Kenya

Funds from carbon credits support enhanced protection of the Chyulu Hills, including the recruiting and training of local rangers and the construction of new ranger stations. Funds also go toward bolstering communication and monitoring equipment and improving roads. Funds also improve health care facilities, build and renovate schools and support local income-generating activities that promote conservation like ecotourism and tree nurseries.

How Do We Calculate the Footprint of Your Flight?

Carbon dioxide emissions per passenger are calculated by estimating the distance between your origin and destination using the haversine formula to adjust for the Earth’s curvature. Note that this may be slightly different from the distance between those city’s airports. The emissions impact of the flight is then calculated by multiplying the estimated distance (in miles) and the appropriate generalized emissions factors (in kilograms CO2e/passenger-mile). The emissions factor includes impacts of CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions and is selected based on the flight distance — short, medium or long haul — per EPA methodology. CO2-equivalent (CO2e) is the standard unit for measuring greenhouse gas emissions as it allows normalized comparison of greenhouse gases with different global warming potentials. The resulting estimated flight emissions footprint is then converted from kg CO2e to metric tonnes CO2e by dividing by 1,000. While this method is a very common and reasonably accurate way to estimate flight footprint, a more accurate method is to use fuel burn, passenger load factor and passenger-to-freight ratio in accordance with ICAO methodology. However, these data vary by carrier and route and are not publicly available and thus they could not be incorporated in the calculation at this time.

Invest in Nature

Thousands of people like you have invested in nature

Invest in Nature

Thousands of people like you have invested in nature

Our carbon projects meet the most rigorous standards for impact, efficiency and equity. We work in partnership with local communities and governments to maximize revenues to the people who live nearest, and who directly depend on, forests.

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More Resources

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