What is Carbon Footprint and How to Track It?

Everyday activities such as electricity consumption, transportation, fuel use, waste generation, water use, meals, accommodation, and livelihood-related operations contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. When emissions increase without proper control, they intensify global warming and contribute to climate change.

A carbon footprint is the total amount of GHG emissions generated directly or indirectly by an activity, product, service, organisation, or individual. These emissions are commonly expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e), which combines the impact of different greenhouse gases into a single measurement.

Understanding carbon footprint is an important first step in identifying practical opportunities to reduce environmental impact and support more sustainable practices.

MyCARBON Carbon Footprint Calculator helps users estimate their carbon footprint based on selected activities and consumption patterns localized to Malaysian community. By providing a simplified and accessible assessment, the platform aims to improve carbon literacy and encourage informed decision-making among tourism operators, businesses, and local communities.

MyCARBON translates everyday community, and livelihood-related activities into estimated carbon footprint values using an activity-based calculation method. Users select an activity category, choose the relevant activity type, and enter the required usage or quantity. The calculator then multiplies the user input by the relevant emission factor.

MyCARBON covers five main activity groups:

MyTravel
Estimates emissions from land, sea, and air transportation based on travel time, transport mode, fuel type, traffic condition, train type, or water-based transport type.

MyStay
Estimates emissions from accommodation, home, office, school, or university activities based on location, type of stay, accommodation category, appliance use, and duration.

MyMeal
Estimates emissions from meals based on cuisine type, cooking style, serving size, and number of servings.

Cooked on Gas Stove represents the common contemporary cooking style, including but not limited to frying, boiling, steaming, and similar food preparation methods using a gas stove. This category is treated as the baseline carbon value for each cuisine. In this context, regular boiling is distinguished from Hotpot/Steamboat because Hotpot/Steamboat typically involves longer continuous heating, higher water volume, and greater potential for wastewater generation.

Grill/BBQ/Bakar/Tandoor/Yakiniku is adjusted according to the higher-emission animal protein and may involve charcoal or higher direct cooking fuel use.

Hotpot/Steamboat/Shabu-shabu is adjusted according to the continuous heating during the meal, mixed meat or seafood ingredients, processed items, broth preparation, and higher water use for soup and cleaning.

MyWaste
Estimates emissions from common waste items such as plastic bottles, food packaging, aluminium cans, glass bottles, bags, boxes, organic waste, and plastic or paper wrapping.

MyWater
Estimates emissions from water-related activities such as drinking water, toilet flushing, tap water use, showering, bathing, and laundry.

The result is presented in three ways:

kgCO₂e
The estimated greenhouse gas emission expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent.

Tree equivalent
The estimated number of trees needed to absorb the calculated emissions, based on the reference value used in the MyCARBON calculation.

Carbon price equivalent
The estimated carbon value in Malaysian Ringgit benchmarked directly against the Bursa Carbon Exchange (BCX). At RM77.00 per tonne, this rate reflects the market-clearing price for Malaysia Nature-Based Plus (MNC+) contracts.

This approach helps users understand carbon footprint not only as a technical value, but also as a practical and relatable indicator of environmental impact. The results are intended to support awareness, comparison, and low-carbon decision-making.

MyCARBON Carbon Footprint Calculator is developed as a carbon literacy and awareness tool to help users estimate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with daily activities, including travel, accommodation, meals, water use, waste generation, and household, office, or school electricity use.

The purpose of MyCARBON is to translate common user activities into simplified kgCO₂e estimates, so that communities, households, and organizations can better understand their carbon footprint and identify practical low-carbon choices.

The MyCARBON applies an activity-data × emission-factor approach. This calculation structure is aligned with the general greenhouse gas accounting method used in the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, where emissions are estimated from activity data and relevant emission factors. For Malaysia-specific factors, the algorithm prioritizes national sources, including Malaysia’s First Biennial Transparency Report (BTR1), Fourth Biennial Update Report (BUR4), and official Grid Emission Factor values for Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak.

Where direct Malaysia-specific activity factors are not available, such as hotel benchmarking, meal composition, packaging material factors, passenger-kilometer transport factors, cruise and ferry factors, appliance assumptions, shower flow rates, laundry water use, and food ingredient carbon intensity, the values are treated as research-based or proxy assumptions. These assumptions were selected from academic literature, international datasets, technical reports, and commercial product references, then adapted into simplified calculator values suitable for public awareness and comparison.

Therefore, MyCARBON should be interpreted as a screening-level carbon literacy and awareness calculator, not a formal greenhouse gas verification or certification tool. The results are suitable for comparing activity categories, estimating baseline behavior, supporting community engagement, and guiding low-carbon decision-making. For certified carbon reporting, verified emissions inventory, ESG disclosure, or regulatory submission, the estimates should be replaced with actual metered electricity data, fuel purchase records, water bills, waste audit data, hotel utility records, supplier-specific lifecycle data, or third-party verified emission factors.

MyCARBON is developed through a joint collaboration between the Digital Travel Technology Association of Malaysia (DiTTAM), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), The Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC), and MIMOS Berhad.