Quick Carbon Calculator
Welcome to the Repair Café Carbon Calculator
Quickly see how much you are saving!
Designed especially for Repair Cafés to estimate
GHG emissions and landfill & recyclables saving.
One of the potential benefits from repairing rather than renewing products is the ability to prevent the manufacture of new replacement products that increase the level of greenhouse emissions to the atmosphere. Estimating theses savings can be a complex task, so the new Repair Café Carbon Calculator aims to make this a much easier task if your Repair Café collects even very basic information about the repairs it undertakes.
Which calculator to use?
NOTE: You can select the ‘Quick’ or ‘Standard’ calculator using the ‘Repair Café Carbon Calculator’ dropdown in the site navigation bar at the top of the screen.
Quick Carbon Calculator: If you want to quickly estimate your repair emission savings all you need to do is enter either the TOTAL Weight of successful repairs (kg) or the TOTAL Number of items repaired successfully.
The Quick Calculator does not need to know the type of products you have repaired since it uses repair data for many product repairs across multiple Repair Cafés. This data has been used to compute the savings using the average emission savings for all products, but importantly takes into account allowances for other factors that impact emissions savings, such as how many products are taken by the average visitor for repair and how many miles they will have driven to and from the Repair Café etc.
Remember that successfully repaired means that the repair was a Total Success, not a partial repair or possibly repaired!
STEPS
1- Check the toggle tab (above the Blue input slider) is set to the input type you want to use; ‘Weight of Repairs’ or ‘Number of Repairs’.
2 – Move the input slider (on Blue line) by clicking and dragging the blue slider using your mouse until you see the Weight or Number of repairs you want to input is indicated. Note: you can also use the Arrow Keys to move the slider backwards and forwards once you have clicked on the slider button.
3- To see your saving results click on the Blue ‘Calculate NOW’ button that will appear once the slide has an input value selected, you will then be taken to the results page. Please note you can also have the results e-mailed to you. Simply click on the e-mail required check box and input your email address before clicking on the ‘Calculate NOW’ button.
Standard Carbon Calculator: If you want to estimate your repair emission savings by product category for a more accurate estimate, you can do this by inputing the TOTAL Weight of successful repairs (kg) or else the TOTAL Number of items repaired successfully for each of the 8 different categories described. If you did not repair any products in a particular category then leave the input (Blue) slider for that category at zero ‘0’.
The Standard Carbon Calculator does not need to know item by item the individual products that have been repaired since it uses repair data for many products across multiple Repair Cafés. This data has been used to compute the the average product weights and embodied carbon emissions for each general product category. The overall calculation importantly takes into account allowances for other factors that impact emissions savings, such as how many products are taken by the average visitor for repair and how many miles they will have driven to and from the Repair Café etc.
Remember that successfully repaired means that the repair was a Total Success, not a partial repair or possibly repaired!
STEPS
1- Check the toggle tab (above the Blue input slider) is set to the input type you want to use; ‘Weight of Repairs’ or ‘Number of Repairs’.
2 – Move the input slider (Blue line) by clicking and dragging the slider button using your mouse until you see the Weight or Number of repairs you want to use indicated for each category of product you have repaired. Note you can also use the Arrow Keys to move the slider backwards and forwards once you have clicked on the slider button.
3- To see your results click on the ‘Calculate NOW’ button that will appear once the slide has an input value selected, you will then be taken to the results page. Please note you can also have the results e-mailed to you. Simply click on the email required check box and input your email address before clicking on the ‘Calculate NOW’ button.
The Quick Carbon Calculator allows you to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission savings and landfill savings for a single or number of Repair Café sessions by inputting the Weight or Number of products repaired, depending on which Quick Carbon Calculator you have selected.
In general it is better to use Weight of products (if known) and you only have a small number of successful repairs, since if you have a number of below average weight items such as Jewellery and Clothing in your successful repair mix, the estimated GHG emission savings figure is likely to be less over optimistic.
Emission savings (kg CO2e): This figure is calculated by considering the total embodied GHG emissions in a (wtd) average of all successful types of product repaired across the UK Repair Cafés surveyed, and being replaced with new like for like product replacements; the ‘Replacement product savings’. Deducted from this figure is the total estimated Repair related emissions giving the overall GHG Emission Saving’s figure.
Landfill (kg & kg estimated): This is the total weight (kg) of all products successfully repaired and therefore not entering landfill or waste reprocessing sites. The Landfill estimate is either a direct copy of the total Weight of products repaired, or else calculated by multiplying the total Number of successful product repairs by the (wtd) average of successfully repaired product weights across x100s of UK Repair Café repairs.
Number of successful repairs (units & units estimated): This is the total Number of products that have been successfully repaired and is either a direct copy of the Number of successful repairs or else calculated based on the total Weight of successful repairs entered, divided by the (wtd) average of successfully repaired product weights across UK x100s of UK Repair Cafés repairs.
The carbon saving intensity of repairs (kg CO2e/kg & kg CO2e/repair): This figure represents the Emission savings (kg CO2e) divided by either the total weight weight (kg) of all products successfully repaired OR the Emission savings divided by the total number of successful repairs to give a per kg or per repair CO2e saving. The figure is quoted differently for weight of product and number of product repair data inputs. This is because; if your Repair Cafe is recording product repair numbers it is more meaningful to know the carbon saving intensity per product for comparative purposes, and visa versa when recording product weights knowing the carbon saving intensity per kilogram of product repaired makes any comparison more relevant to the input data used.
It should be noted that the carbon intensity gauge figures for BOTH versions of the Quick calculator will NOT change whatever the number or weight of products input. This is because in both cases the calculator is using (from data collected) a UK derived figure across ALL successful repairs of the estimated average product weight and the estimated GHG emission savings per kilogram of product repaired. The carbon intensity gauge in the case of the quick calculator is simply indicating the conversion factor being used to make the calculation, and should be read as such. It will always display the the average value.
Where do the figures used come from?
The estimated calculations are based on data collected and analysed from 13 UK Repair Cafés for a total of nearly 3000 attempted repairs. This enabled a typical product profile for repairs undertaken at UK Repair Cafés to be created, taking into account product types, average weights, repair success rates and spare parts used.
In conjunction with data obtained from UK Repair Cafés a questionnaire was used to collect data from visitors to Repair Cafés. This additional data has been used to derive estimates for; the typical type of transportation used, distances travelled, number of products taken for repair by each visitor, failure rates immediately after a successful product repair at a Repair Café, and how many visitors go on to buy a new product despite a successful repair etc. An allowance is also made for rebound consumption, based on the percentage of visitors who felt they had saved money as a result of using a Repair Café and stated that they had or would possibly go on to purchase additional goods and services as a result of the successful repair.
A full description of the methodology and references used can be found HERE
It is very important to note that the estimated GHG emission savings (if any) DO NOT occur immediately at the time of repair. The GHG emission savings are in fact ‘potential’ emission savings because attempting the repair of all faulty products directly and indirectly creates GHG emissions; Transportation, Spare Parts, Rebound Consumption etc. This means that any successfully repaired product has to prevent the purchase of a new product for an extended period of time to enable the positive GHG emissions associated with the repair service to be recuperated. Once this point in time is reached – ‘the breakeven point’ – the GHG emission savings then start to become negative, and over time can reach the estimated GHG emission savings figure. The future time by which the potential GHG emission savings are achieved depends on reaching the breakeven point, and then the product continuing to be used for a period equaling its original ‘expected’ usable life. For example a mobile phone may be expected to have a usable life of 1.8 years; research by Green Alliance UK indicates that with repair a mobile phone’s usable life can be extended by a factor of 2-3 times.
Receiving an e-mail copy of your carbon saving results
Simply enter your email address and a text version of the results page will be sent to you. It should be received immediately, if NOT please check your spam or junk folder as the results will almost certainly be there if they have not arrived in your in-box.
What values are being used for calculation in the Quick Carbon Calculator?
For All Repairs:
Average product weight 3.5 kg (Note: This weight is for all products Including Bicycles)
Average GHG emission saving of -9.4 kg CO2e/kg of product successfully repaired.
For the equivalence carbon emission comparison to ONE of 3 activities:
Driving a car 240.8 g CO2/mile
Reference used HERE
Taking a hot shower 1.6 kg CO2/10 minutes
Reference used HERE
Flying from UK to Europe 164g CO2/Passenger mile
Reference used HERE