Home Emissions

Tracking energy used in your home or apartment is one of the most important things we can do as Climate Responsible people. It is also one of the easiest things we can do if you are a home owner or someone that pays your own utility bills.

Electricity

Most electric utilities have an online portal where you can access all the past utility bills which list the kWh per month.

Simply add up the total kWh per month over the past 12 months and you will get your total annual electricity consumption. This number is likely to be between 2000 and 30,000 kWh/year.

To get the electricity use per day divide the annual total by 365 days per year. For example, in 2025 I used 4631 kWh of electricity. My daily average would be:

4631 kWh/year / 365 days/yr = 12.68 kWh/day

To get the carbon emissions from this electricity, multiply the kWh by 0.346 kg CO2/kWh*.

12.68 kWh/day x 0.346 kg CO2/kWh = 4.38 kg per day.

To get your personal emissions , you need to divide the household emissions by the the number of people living in the home. I live with one other person so I will divide by the home carbon emissions by "2" to get the electrical consumption contribution to my carbon footprint.

4.38 kg/day/household / 2 people per household = 2.2 kg CO2per day

*For those of you questioning the 0.346 factor: this is a national average. It is possible to be more accurate but also more complicated so for the purposes of Climate Responsible, we are defaulting to simplification.

Home Natural Gas

Calculating emissions from natural gas requires knowledge of the therms of natural gas used in a year. This is provided in your monthly gas bill from your utility. This can be accessed through the utilities online portal or by keeping track of your monthly billing statements. Add all the monthly therms for the past 12 months from your billing statements to get the annual therms used.

I use about 370 therms/year. I use natural gas to heat my home and my hot water. I live with one other person. Natural gas usage varies widely by month in cold climates but I can get an average therms per day by dividing the annual amount by 365.

370 therms/year divided by 365 days/year = 1.01 therms per day.

Multiplying the therms/day by 5.3 kg CO2/therm gives the CO2 kg emissions per day from natural gas consumption.

1.01 therms per day x 5.3 kg CO2/therm = 5.35 kg CO2 per day for my home.

To get my portion of the emissions I again divide by the number of people in my home

5.37 kgCO2/day per house / 2 people/house = 2.68 kg CO2 /day

Source for kg CO2 factors. EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Equivalency Calculator