Ecological Footprint Calculators:
What I especially liked about this calculator was that it explained each category of questions, i.e., food, mobility, etc. Their explanations and definitions made it clear to me what information I should include in my answers. Another thing I liked was the amount of detail it allowed you to give—each question provided three ways to answer, each with increasing amounts of detail. This allowed me to see how broad or specific my answer actually were and if I wanted results that were very individualized I had to give very specific answers. The website was very simple and straightforward. I was able to easily navigate through the website. It referenced The Ecological Footprint Standards 2009 developed by a committed made up of representatives form academia, government, NGOs, and consulting firms.
Like #1 there was an explanation for each category. Some questions were not applicable to me and I didn’t have the opportunity to opt out of them.
This calculator was very straight forward and simple. It didn't allow for very specific responses, but I did see similarities in the results to the other quizzes. It is a good calculator to get a quick calculation to know which lifestyle improvements need to be made.
The WWF calculator was short and sweet. It was easy to understand, had sound, and simple graphics to easily get each message across.
Carbon Footprint Calculators
This calculator allowed for pretty specific responses. One thing that was very obvious throughout the quiz was that the Carbon Footprint sells offsets. They also provided information on how to decrease your carbon footprint, but offsets were easer to find.
The EPA calculator was quite thorough. I felt it was better than the others because after it asked general questions I was able to go back and fill out specific information that was missing.
The Nature Conservatory's calculator asked less about specific amounts of money spent on energy bills, miles travelled in airplane, miles travelled in buses, subways etc., it asked for more of an average than actual. My results from this calculator were much higher than the others. The Nature Conservatory also had a different approach to “offsets.” They never actually used theh word "offsets" but provided many ways to donate money towards their organization that offset CO2 emissons.
