Collaborative filtering and carbon footprint calculation

An increasingly common way for people to measure and understand their individual environmental impact is by using an online carbon footprint calculator. Although a wide variety of these calculators are available, the vast majority shares the same form of user interaction and calculation methods, limiting the reach of these tools and introducing a number of problems for informing users of their environmental impact. We find that the interaction afforded by popular calculators-in addition to considering only a limited number of impact factors at a single instant in time-treats a person´s carbon footprint as an individual matter, rather than drawing attention to the interconnectivity and wider impacts of footprints across the person´s broader community. To address these problems, we present the Better Carbon calculator, which uses collaborative filtering and location-based calculation to provide an individual footprint estimate while simultaneously affecting and improving the estimates for other people in a user´s community.