Environmental Footprint Calculators:
Tools for auditing your school and monitoring progress

Green school initiatives are most successful when everyone is engaged, including students, teachers, and staff.  But how do you inspire and engage students and the school community to get involved and stay involved?  By using the ecological footprint tools listed below combined with our resources on school audits, you can engage your school in greening projects, evaluate your progress, and celebrate your achievements so you can keep moving along the path of the 7 Steps to a Green School.

One green school that used a footprint tool with terrific results is the Prospect Sierra School in El Cerrito, CA.  They engaged students in an analysis of how to reduce the environmental impact of the paper products they purchase annually.  By using the Paper Calculator below, they were able to quantify the environmental impact of the paper products they normally purchased, and determine how much energy and how many trees would be saved by switching to paper products with a higher recycled content.  They were also able to do a cost-benefit analysis that enabled them to develop a business case for switching to the recycled paper.

These online tools for students deliver just the type of hands-on, experiential learning – often incorporated into environmental education, science, social studies, or global issues curricula – that is shown to improve student achievement, increase critical-thinking skills, nurture children’s natural affinity to “do good,” and ultimately contribute to happier adults who are more engaged in their communities!

  General Environmental Footprint Calculators

Green Schools Quiz
How green is your school? Take our short quiz and get a quick assessment of your grade and whether or not you are on your way to our Green Schools Honor Roll.

Ecological Footprint Quiz
Ever wondered how much “nature” your lifestyle requires? You're about to find out. The Ecological Footprint Quiz estimates the area of land and ocean required to support your consumption of food, goods, services, housing, and energy and assimilate your wastes.

Adventures with Bobbie Bigfoot
This cute online quiz is good for younger students who are just beginning to learn about the concept of an ecological footprint.

Zero Footprint Kids Calculator
This online tool helps kids measure the environmental impact of what they eat, how they get to school, products they use, and what they throw away.

School Carbon and Ecological Footprint Calculator
Developed in the UK, this online educational introduction to the environmental impact of consumption is followed by an interactive Excel Eco Calculator made especially for kids assessing their school’s impact.

  Carbon and Energy Calculators

The Cool School Challenge Classroom Carbon Calculator
The Cool School Challenge is an educational program intended to engage students and teachers in practical strategies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions schoolwide and provides this comprehensive calculator for classrooms along with a Classroom Toolkit full of step-by-step instructions.

EPA Calculator for Schools
This fun online tool helps students understand how taking action at home can help them all reduce the impacts of climate change.

The SchoolNeutral Carbon Calculator
This downloadable Excel spreadsheet will help you measure your school’s emissions from electricity and gas consumption, transportation, and more.

Green Schools Climate Change Carbon Calculator
Get instructions for students on how to gather the data, and download the Excel calculator, or use the online version developed by the Repak recycling company in Ireland (requires conversion to the metric system).

Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator
Did you ever wonder what reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 1 million metric tons means in everyday terms? The greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator can help you understand just that, translating abstract measurements into concrete terms you can understand, such as "equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions of 183,000 cars annually."

Energy Kids, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration
These simple online calculators for energy used in the United States help kids learn about the greenhouse gas emissions from coal, electricity, natural gas, and crude oil (including gasoline and heating oil) as well as explaining scientific notation.

  Paper Calculators

The Paper Calculator, by the Environmental Defense Fund
By using less paper, increasing recycled content, and making other improvements, you can save wood, water and energy, and cut pollution and solid waste. The Paper Calculator shows the environmental impacts of different papers across their full lifecycle.

  Waste Calculators

Environmental Benefits Calculator
Helps determine the GHG and energy benefits of current waste disposal practices. Users enter data on the amount of various waste materials they landfill, recycle, and incinerate, and the tool calculates how that waste disposal scenario compares with one in which all waste is landfilled. The tool reports the benefits in terms of GHGs and other air emissions, energy use, quantity of oil and gas consumed, waterborne wastes, and other metrics.

WAste Reduction Model (WARM)
EPA created the WAste Reduction Model (WARM) to help solid waste planners and organizations track and voluntarily report greenhouse gas emissions reductions from several different waste management practices. WARM is available both as a Web-based calculator and as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

  Green Purchasing Calculators

The Responsible Purchasing Network Calculators
Use these cost and benefit calculators to quantify the results of responsible purchasing.