Zerofootprint Toronto

I see that the City of Toronto has initiated a new project called "Zerofootprint Toronto."  This is a collaborative effort between the City government and a Canadian nonprofit organization called "Zerofootprint," located in Toronto. 

The idea behind this project is to create a municipality-focused means for all residents and businesses to compute their own carbon footprints, and, in the process, incrementally build a picture of the carbon footprint of the city as a whole.  This is a unique approach to carbon footprints -- there are numerous footprint calculators available online, but this is the only resource that is specifically designed to aggregate the results of individuals within a city.  So the idea seems to be to make this tool available to everyone in Toronto, where they can register for an account and login to get access to the carbon footprint calculator.  As a result, the calculator does what most carbon calculators are designed to do, that is, to elevate peoples' awareness about how much carbon they are responsbile for.  But here the information helps the city to understand the footprint of the city as a whole. See the City's web description of the project at Zerofootprint Toronto.

ZeroFootprint is a nonprofit organization that offers this type of project to individuals, municipalities, businesses, and a wide array of other organizations, including schools, generally.  It was founded by Ron Dembo, a Canadian businessperson who founded and ran a company called Algorithmics.  Zerofootprint's Executive Director is Deborah Kaplan.  Check its web site for a more complete look at what Zerofootprint does.

Obviously, cities have other ways of estimating their carbon footprints (see my other postings on the subject).  How useful will this project be?  I suspect that it will be useful in raising peoples' awareness. I wonder whether it will provide city officials with any new information or insights about the city's carbon footprint.  What do you think?  Will it help the cause of reducing carbon emissions. Will the information gather from Zerofootprint Toronto aid in the city's carbon inventory process?  Is this the kind of project that might work in your city or town?  Let me know what you think.

Comments

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[greenie]

There is a carbon calculator you can use to calculate your carbon footprint at:
ExquisiteOrganics.com/carbonfootprint

[greenie]

There is a carbon calculator you can use to calculate your carbon footprint at:
ExquisiteOrganics.com/carbonfootprint