Imagine walking through downtown Nairobi; earphones blasting Samidoh while pretending its a woke podcast you are listening to, laptop in your backpack, coffee in one hand, phone in the other (probably scrolling through memes). You look harmless, right? But guess what? You're leaving a trail. Not of perfume or your ex’s drama, this one’s invisible. It’s called a carbon footprint.
A carbon footprint is the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) you and I unleash into the atmosphere just by living our best lives. Driving to work? Footprint. Streaming Netflix? Footprint. Burning charcoal to grill your Sunday mutura? Massive footprint (and maybe a side of cholesterol, but that’s a separate conversation).
Why Should We Even Care? Because Kenya is getting roasted. Literally. Droughts, random floods, heat that slaps harder than Auntie Waithira’s judgment. Climate change isn’t knocking, it kicked down the door and is now chilling on our couch like your unemployed relative. Yet we’re not the ones with mega factories or private jets. Still, we pay the price. Our crops suffer, rivers dry up, and when it rains, it pours like the sky’s been holding a grudge.
Locally, our emissions come from all sorts of culprits: smoky matatus, illegal logging, charcoal cookers, and even our love for second-hand everything (fast fashion leaves a footprint too, by the way).
As if this climate story wasn’t dramatic enough, life throws in a Tyler Perry-style plot twist: carbon credits which is basically receipts for saving the planet. One credit = one tonne of CO₂ removed or avoided (read: Ignored). You earn them by doing good things like planting trees, building clean cook stoves, or switching to solar and here’s the kicker: some tech bros in the Global North trash the world, then toss us a ‘thank you’ in the form of dollars. Yaani, they pollute, we plant, and somehow we’re supposed to smile and say asante.
Not bad… but not enough because here’s the giant, pothole-sized gap: most Kenyans have no clue what their own carbon footprint even looks like, let alone where to begin shrinking it.
So, we decided to create a Carbon Footprint Calculator that helps you track your emissions based on how you actually live. Matatus? Check. Ugali cooked with gas or jiko? Sorted. Charging five devices at once like a tech hoarder? Yep, that too.
It's not a guilt trip. It’s a woke trip.
We want you to understand your impact, then give you tools to reduce, reuse, and when all else fails, offset.
Curious about your impact on the planet? Calculate your carbon footprint with our interactive tool and see where you stand!