About The Carbon Ledger
What this site covers
The magazine is organised into three sections. The measuring section explains how a carbon footprint is built, from the activity data to the emission factors, and covers both household and business inventories. The offsets section separates offsets from credits, follows the path from purchase to retired credit, and shows how to read a carbon claim. The cutting emissions section ranks the changes that reduce emissions at home, on the road and in a small business.
Behind the sections sits a working carbon footprint calculator that turns a few household inputs into an annual estimate, and a set of guides that explain each input in turn. The aim is not to sell anything but to make the arithmetic and the vocabulary clear enough that a reader can judge a claim, a product or a policy on its merits.
How the guides are written
Every guide follows the same discipline. Claims that can be checked are sourced. Numbers are given with their units and their assumptions, and where an estimate is rough it is labelled as rough rather than dressed up as precise. Where the science or the accounting is contested, the guide says so and explains the disagreement rather than picking a side for effect. The tone is neutral: this is a magazine about a public subject, not the voice of a company, a campaign or a regulator.
The editorial team writes in the third person and does not present itself as any organisation named in the articles. Registries, standards bodies, agencies and companies are described as they are, with links to their own material where that helps a reader go further.
Sources and how they are used
The site leans on primary sources wherever possible: national agencies for emission factors and household methodology, the accounting standards for how inventories are structured, and the registries for what a specific offset actually retired. Secondary sources are used to explain context, not to carry facts that a primary source could confirm. When a guide relies on an average or a published factor, it names the type of source so a reader knows what kind of number they are looking at.
The questions page collects the short answers, and each longer guide links back to the sources it used. Readers who spot an error are invited to write in through the contact page, and corrections are made in the open.
What the site does not do
The Carbon Ledger does not sell carbon offsets, does not run inventories for clients and does not recommend particular providers. It explains how the market works so that readers can compare offers themselves. It also does not present estimates as audits: a household calculator is an educational tool, and a reportable business inventory needs its own evidence and, usually, independent verification. The guides are careful to keep that distinction visible.
Where the site links out, the link is there because the destination is useful, not because of a commercial arrangement. Any future sponsorship or advertising would be labelled clearly, in line with the site's own advice on reading claims in the carbon labels guide.