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To halt global warming, we (collectively) must achieve NET ZERO carbon emissions by 2050 (and significantly reduce other greenhouse gas emissions). That target doesn’t just apply to countries or specific industries. It applies to EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US. Yep, you, too.
But do you know what your household carbon emissions actually are (to start with)? We certainly didn’t. With carbon illiteracy a key reason why we (collectively) struggle to make meaningful headways in reducing emissions, we decided to
- learn more about OUR carbon footprint, and
- find out how our lifestyle choices impact our carbon emissions.
Here is what we discovered (spoiler alert: it was not an easy exercise but eye-opening).
To achieve NET ZERO by 2050, we all must review our lifestyle choices
How did we calculate our carbon footprint?
Determining your carbon footprint when you’re a digital nomad is pretty much impossible. We initially tried a few carbon footprint calculators but quickly discovered their shortcomings: We were able to use them to get a rough idea of our carbon emissions in Sydney (where we led a typical life with a fixed address), but we hit a roadblock as soon as we tried to use them for our nomadic/more alternative lifestyles.
So, we decided to calculate our carbon footprint bottom up by building a (ginormous) Excel spreadsheet and calculating each carbon contributor individually (an insane task, by the way).
We tried to take a whole-of-life approach as much as possible, differentiating between two major groups of emissions:
- Embedded or embodied carbon: These are emissions released during the raw material extraction, manufacturing, transport and end-of-life disposal of goods. Where goods are assets that last for a considerable amount of time, for example, accommodation (buildings, furniture, appliances), our gear (clothing, technology) or vehicles, we annualised the embodied carbon emissions based on the expected life span of the asset.
- Use/Consumption-based emissions: As the name suggests, these are emissions released during the use of goods or the consumption of products and services. In our case, this includes our food, utilities (water, electricity, gas, internet, data storage) and transportation (based on miles travelled and transport mode/fuel consumed).
Carbon is embedded in everything we use - from the buildings we live in to the clothes on our body
Disadvantages of our bottom-up approach
We are not carbon scientists, and we did not adhere to any internationally accepted carbon calculation standard – this wasn’t intended to be a scientific paper.
We don’t have access to the giant databases the experts have access to. This meant we had to make do with publicly available data. While there is way more data out there than only a few years ago, the sources don’t always disclose (or are too vague about) the lifecycle elements they include. For example, some food-related emissions data may consist of emissions only from cradle to farmgate, neglecting (potentially substantial) emissions released during the processing, transport and display (in retail stores). We often found that different sources stated different emissions data for seemingly the same thing. In those instances, we would use the average across the various sources.
While we tried to take a whole-of-life approach, not having one reliable source and not knowing which lifecycle elements were included (or not) meant that our bottom-up calculation would contain duplications of emissions in some parts and omissions in others.
Advantages of our bottom-up approach
Despite all the shortcomings, taking the bottom-up approach allowed us to consider our emissions both at home and away to compare apples with apples between
- a nomadic lifestyle (where your life, work and travel morph into one), and
- a typical corporate lifestyle (where a large chunk of your emissions are caused during the commute, in city-centre offices, and during annual vacations overseas).
Building our spreadsheet and using the same approach across ALL our lifestyles meant we could compare our emissions across our different lifestyles despite likely omissions and duplications (as we would use the same data/sources and thus make identical omissions/duplications across all lifestyles).
Makes sense? Cool. Let’s have a look at our findings next.
Carbon is also released on our daily commute, at our workplace, even when we go to the gym
How does our carbon footprint compare across different lifestyles?
Carbon emissions are measured in metric tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere. Every person causes CO2 emissions, but how we choose to live can make a huge difference in the amount of CO2 our lives contribute.
Similar to our cost of living comparison, our carbon footprint comparison shows our annual carbon emissions as a couple
- Living our corporate lives in Sydney,
- Exploring the world with carry-on backpacks, and
- During our year of van life in New Zealand.
Living in a big house with a corporate job and overseas vacations caused almost four times as much carbon as living in a campervan
As you can see, we emitted the most carbon when we lived in Sydney – just under 22.7 tons per annum as a couple. Backpacking around the world caused just under 14.9 tons of CO2 per annum on average. And our lowest emitting lifestyle was our year of van life in New Zealand, at just under 6.1 tons of CO2 for us both.
You may not know if this is a lot or a little. So, let’s give you some perspective (even if this means we are now comparing apples with oranges… bear with us).
According to the latest United Nations Emissions Gap Report, the global per capita average sits at around 6.4 tons of CO2 (with Russia, the US and China well above average). So, if our numbers were truly comparable, emitting a little over 11 tons per person during our corporate life in Sydney would have put us in third place (slightly ahead of China). Even backpacking around the world still puts us slightly above average.
Our corporate life in Sydney put us on par with the 3rd largest polluter globally | Source: UN Emissions Gap Report 2025
While we need to take our numbers with a grain of salt (because of the disadvantages described above), this is still eye-opening.
If you’re wondering how your lifestyle compares with ours, here are a few more details.
Corporate Life Sydney
We lived in a 156 sqm, four-bedroom/two-bathroom terrace house in Glebe (with and without a flatmate). The house was relatively new (built in 2009), made from brick but only single-glazed (as is common in Australia). The house was fully furnished, and our wardrobes were full of clothes. Our appliances were relatively new and energy-efficient. We didn’t have air conditioning, but used a gas heater on nippy winter days. We collected rainwater to water the plants in our small backyard. Otherwise, all our utilities were supplied through the city’s network.
We would take public transport or walk/bike to work. We didn’t own a car, but we would use a car-sharing service (GoGet) for a few hours on weekends to do our weekly grocery shop or visit friends who lived on the outskirts of town.
While in Sydney, we would spend our holidays travelling locally and overseas (mostly to Europe and New Zealand to visit our families). This amounted to almost 27,000 miles per person per year (or 28,000 miles per person, including our daily commute).
Our home in Sydney, AUSTRALIA before we embarked on our lifestyle change
Backpacking Around The World
We backpacked around North, Central and South America in 2017 and 2025, around Europe in 2019 and 2024, and Asia in 2023. During the COVID-19 pandemic (from March 2020 to August 2022), we backpacked around New Zealand (with the occasional house sit). In all cases, we travelled with carry-on luggage only.
We would stay in homestays, locally owned guest houses, hostels and short-term rental accommodations (or in the home of the pet owner/s when we house sat); very rarely in a hotel. We would use the appliances and heating or cooling options provided by our hosts (often sharing facilities like the kitchen, bathroom and lounge room with our hosts or other guests).
During our year in the Americas, we travelled just under 33,000 miles per person by air (including the flights from/to New Zealand). On our European journey, we travelled 36,500 miles per person by plane (again, including the flights from/to New Zealand). All other travel – 10,500 miles per person in the Americas and just under 9,500 miles per person in Europe – was done by train, coach, ship and public transport (and very rarely a rented motor vehicle).
While backpacking in New Zealand, we travelled 2,700 miles per person per annum by plane, a bit over 2,400 miles per person per annum by motor vehicle and just under 470 miles per person per annum using other modes of transportation.
That's us with our carry-on luggage leaving Sydney in 2016
Van Life New Zealand
In 2018, we lived in a diesel-fuelled 1997 Ford Transit campervan and travelled 13,800 kilometres (around 4,300 miles per person) around the country.
During the warmer months, we would stay (off-grid) in free campsites. In winter, we would stay in locally owned campgrounds to have access to (on-grid) electric heating. An electric boiler – powered via the engine’s alternator (while driving) or from the grid (when we stayed at paid campgrounds) – heated our water. Three 100W solar panels covered all our other electricity needs (fridge/freezer, device charging, lighting). We would cook meals on a two-burner gas stove/grill running on LPG/Propane.
We didn’t own a house and only owned the campervan for one year. The campervan contained in-built furniture and applicances (some original, some replaced by more energy-efficient versions), our carry-on luggage and a few household items.
MJ - our trusted Ford Transit Campervan in which we travelled around New Zealand in 2018
What key insights did we gain from calculating our carbon footprint?
Learning #1 – Carbon footprint calculators cater (mostly) for the mainstream
As mentioned above, online carbon footprint calculators do not (yet) cater to nomadic/alternative lifestyles. Assumptions are made based on standard house sizes (with emissions that are much higher than those related to a smaller/tiny home), and even car sharing is a concept most don’t (yet) accommodate.
Learning #2 – Our carbon emissions are intricately linked to our lifestyle choices
Our corporate life (with multiple/shorter overseas holidays) was more carbon-intensive than our slower travel and alternative/nomadic lifestyles.
Learning #3 – Even our lowest emissions were still above target
If our numbers were comparable, none of our lifestyles would meet the per capita average target of less than 2.5 tons per annum by 2030. The closest we’ve gotten to that target was during our year of van life in New Zealand, when we emitted just over 3 tons per person per annum. While our numbers can’t be taken at face value, this gap still gives an indication of the effort we all need to put in to limit global warming to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
Learning #4 – Transportation is our largest emissions contributor
Transportation is the most significant cause of our carbon emissions – across all our lifestyles:
Transportation is the biggest contributor to our carbon footprint, causing 49-71% of our emissions
We expected that for our backpacking lifestyles, as we took a lot of planes (and to travel anywhere from New Zealand, you have to jump on a plane or a (cruise)ship – which isn’t environmentally friendly either). A surprise to us, though, was that travelling halfway around the world for a two-week vacation and taking several shorter flights closer to home emitted almost as much carbon as spending a whole year overseas and travelling slowly.
Here are our transport emissions (per couple per annum) in detail :
- Corporate Life Sydney – Holiday and business travel (10.8 tons), daily commute on public transport (0.4 tons)
- Backpacking RTW – Average of Backpacking Americas (13.9 tons), Europe (15.3 tons) and New Zealand (2.0 tons)
- Van Life New Zealand – 3.0 tons.
Learning #5 – The sharing economy reduces carbon emissions
Apart from cost savings, the sharing economy has a huge environmental benefit. Embodied and energy-use-related carbon emissions are reduced significantly when we share assets like accommodation, appliances, vehicles, tools, etc. Sadly, there is still way more being produced than we actually need.
Learning #6 – Our lifestyles also impact our water consumption
Beyond our carbon footprint, we gained deep insight into our water consumption: We consumed 263 litres per person per day in Sydney but only 32 litres per person per day during our year of van life in New Zealand. When you only have a 100-litre freshwater tank, you are using water way more carefully than in a home where a simple turn of a tap provides an unlimited supply at any time.
When we lived in our campervan, we used less than 1/8 of the water we consumed in Sydney
Learning #7 – Some emission culprits are well-known, others less so
We gained a few other surprising insights, too:
- Agriculture is a huge contributor to carbon emissions, more than we were first aware. Livestock emissions account for 12-19.6% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Animal protein production is highly carbon-intensive (especially if you consider that only 40-75% of an animal – pending species – is edible).
- Aviation is often called out as the main culprit of carbon emissions. But air travel (only) accounts for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions. A far larger culprit is Road Transportation, which accounts for 78% of all transport emissions (compared to 8% for air transport), making electrification so important. Short-haul flights emit more than medium and long-haul flights (on a per miles basis). However, actual emissions also depend on the type of airplane used. 80% of aviation emissions come from flights over 1,500 kilometres (medium- and long-haul).
- While air travel gets always blamed, (fast) fashion somehow slips under the radar. Yet, the Fashion Industry contributes up to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Did you know that fast fashion has a bigger carbon footprint than aviation?
How will these learnings impact our lifestyle choices in the future?
Sustainability is one of our shared core values. Since we started living nomadic/alternative lifestyles, we’ve become much more aware of our water and energy consumption, and the environmental and social impact of our purchases. However, with our (official) carbon footprint likely (way) above the UN per-capita targets, we also know we need to do more.
Nomadic Life
While we want to continue living a nomadic/alternative lifestyle (health and finances permitting), we focus on one continent per year (to reduce the carbon emissions related to flying from/to New Zealand) and choose alternative, more environmentally friendly modes of transportation as much as possible. Staying (even) longer in one place, maximising our use of the local sharing economy and travelling (even more) slowly, will further reduce our carbon footprint.
Overlanding around the world was our plan before COVID-19 hit, and it is still something we may do in the future. We now have a spreadsheet to calculate whether it is more environmentally friendly to slowly overland in a diesel vehicle (with the occasional ship/ferry) or backpack (with ground transportation and the occasional long-haul flight). Based on our findings, we will either use existing public ground transportation as much as possible and only hire a (fuel-efficient) vehicle when required, or select the most fuel-efficient vehicle for our needs and live otherwise off-grid with solar.
By understanding our carbon footprint we can make better decisions about our travels in future
Post-Nomadic Life
We know that at some point, we may want (or need) to live a more stationary life (and only travel occasionally). While we could see ourselves living in several countries around the globe, we’ll likely end up in New Zealand (where Paul is from) or Australia (where Sandra is a dual citizen) – living a low-footprint, permaculture lifestyle. Ideally,
- our home would be small in size (but adequate for our needs), and designed and orientated to minimise heating/cooling needs in winter/summer.
- we would be largely self-sustaining, growing vegetables and fruit organically, and sharing our (hopefully) abundant harvests with neighbours.
- we would limit our waste, reducing packaging in the first place, and recycling or composting as much as possible.
- our appliances would be as energy and water efficient as possible (and we would reuse grey water in our garden).
- our electricity would be provided off-grid or on-grid from 100% renewables.
- we would live close enough to public services, like (super)markets and doctors, to walk to or use public transport (or use an electric vehicle).
When we need a vehicle, we'll be looking for the most environmentally friendly one we can afford
General
Whether nomadic or not, we have been changing our diet: We will never be fully vegan (or even vegetarian), over the past 9+ years, we have been reducing our consumption of dairy and meat, and we will continue to move to a more plant-based diet (again with the view of growing a large part of our food in the long-term).
We won’t be able to track our carbon footprint as we track our finances (though one day hopefully, with CO2 emissions labelling for products, we might). However, we will use our calculation spreadsheet and keep track of our emissions over time to ensure we are heading in the right direction.
We also (continue) to offset our (remaining) carbon emissions by planting (more) native trees and shrubs on our own land or contributing to reforestation projects.
We have been making changes to our diet, reducing dairy and meat, without impacting our nutritional intake
What can you learn from it?
Our carbon footprint is unique to us. And our lifestyle choices may be very different from your own. But we believe there are still learnings you can take away from this article.
Measure
Firstly, as this whole exercise has shown, understand your starting point – by calculating your carbon footprint. Here are some carbon footprint calculators to get you started (alphabetically, based on your location):
| United States | New Zealand | Australia | Europe | Anywhere |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carbon Footprint Ltd Conservation International CoolClimate EPA The Nature Conservancy | Future Fit Toitu Envirocare | Carbon Neutral Carbon Positive | My Climate WWF Germany WWF UK | WikiHow |
Recommended Books on Adopting Minimalism
- Dean Christopher's Minimalism guides readers through a 12-week process to help them identify their values, evaluate their habits, change their mindsets, reduce mental stress, and ultimately transform their lives.
- Mastering Minimalism by Jordan Williams offers a comprehensive roadmap for adopting minimalism, taking a holistic, wheel-of-life approach that covers all aspects of our lives.
- Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism explores the impact of constant connectivity. It helps us regain control by using technology to support our values and goals (not distracting from them).
- Travel Light by Light Watkins combines the principles of minimalism with the art of travel. It offers practical tips on planning, packing, and staying mindful on the road to enhance the experience.
- Sustainable Living, Minimalism and Zero Waste by B. R. Pohl focuses on the intersection of minimalism and sustainability, helping readers to limit their footprint by reducing waste and consuming (more) mindfully.
Reduce
Be more mindful of your everyday actions’ environmental footprint. Then, determine what specific actions you can take to (significantly) reduce your carbon footprint. This article can help you with both.
The best way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere is by not emitting it in the first place (Gabriela Herculano)
If you’re interested in some in-depth research on how lifestyle choices impact your carbon footprint, here is further reading material:
"The best way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere is by not emitting in the first place" (G Herculano)
Offset
Companies claiming to be carbon neutral often achieve that neutrality by purchasing offsets. Does this mean they emit less carbon? Not necessarily. So, if we want to limit our carbon footprint, offsetting can only ever be the last resort.
To offset the remainder of your carbon emissions, plant trees in your garden or neighbourhood. In absence of that, find projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere. Look for certified projects and projects run by not-for-profits to ensure every cent has impact – for example, projects funded through Just One Tree, the Borneo Nature Foundation or the Wren Climate Fund.
Do you know and monitor your household carbon footprint?
What calculator/s did/do you use, and how much CO2 do you emit per year? What changes to your lifestyle have you made to reduce your carbon emissions? And how do you go about offsetting the remainder of your emissions?
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