The following pages have been set up to calculate the Carbon Footprint of a typical dive shop operating in Fiji.
If you are a different business and want to participate, you may discover that you have to consider other and/or additional sources of CO2 (like e.g. food, usage of natural gas, office paper, etc) which are not being addressed here. For calculating those emissions, please refer to one of the many publicly available carbon calculators.
In a typical Fijian dive shop, emissions are mainly generated by
• The vessels
• The compressor that can be operated by fuel or electrically
• The vehicles
• The office, this principally via the air conditioning units but also lighting and computers
• Any generators
With that in mind, you will need to consider
• The fuel consumption and make of your vehicles
• The fuel consumption of your other engines like the motors of your vessels, compressors and generators
• Your power consumption and the nature of that electrical power
Your total Carbon Footprint is the sum of the emissions you have calculated for each of the above categories.
This is of course a rather simplified calculation that focuses only on the major sources of CO2. Once you have calculated your total Carbon Footprint as per above, it is therefore recommended to add a margin of 10% and to round up to the next metric ton of CO2.
Those will be your final total Emissions expressed in metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, or tCO2e/y.
The last step consists in determining how many Mangroves you will have to plant in order to become a Carbon Neutral Business, and to add your Physical Footprint at the end.