Like every New year, this one began with pompous displays of fireworks across the world – a sight we all enjoy watching! Though I might sound too cynical in making anyone feel bad about those few moments of “joy”, it indeed is an important question to ask and also leads to another more important one – Have all of us put CO2 reductions in our list of this year’s resolutions?

I would suggest everyone to visit Carbon Footprint which you can use to calculate the emissions made by you and your business. Then use the various CO2 reduction methods to see how far you can go in helping save the planet from climate change.

Another interesting tool is the Zero Foot Print Calculator. The Zero Foot Print Group of companies empowers communities, companies and organizations to live ingeniously in a low carbon world. They offer a number of calculators. Use one of the one minute calculators to get a quick measure of your carbon footprint. You can then offset them by donating to green projects like afforestation programs, recycling projects etc.

EU has also built a carbon calculator to make people think about personal environmental impact and reduce carbon footprint. It provides users with a number of ideas of reduction through simple, everyday changes.

There are a number of such tools which are available these days and it has become really easy for anyone and everyone to calculate their carbon footprint and then work on reducing it. Though a lot of these tools make a number of assumptions (most of which are skewed towards the lifestyle of developed countries), the underlying idea is to get people think about it and start working on it and that pretty much works!