Cell Phone To Track Carbon Footprint

A new piece of software for your cell phone uses GPS to work out your mode of travel and then calculate your carbon footprint.

Most of us are getting greener, and a new piece of software from a London company called Carbon Hero can help you become greener by calculating the carbon footprint of each trip you make.

Called Carbon Diem, the software uses GPS to calculate both the speed and direction of your movement, and its algorithm can then figure out what type of transportation you’ve used. From there it can automatically calculate the amount of CO2 emitted during the trip.

That way a user can see their impact on the environment and come up with greener alternatives, according to inventor Andreas Zacharaiah, who explained,

"We’re facilitating people to make little changes and allow those changes to be noted and registered and possibly shared," he said. "If lots of people realise we’re in this marathon [in tackling climate change] and we’re not running alone, then we actually think people will be motivated to stick to changes."

The software, which has so far been tested on Nokia and BlackBerry handsets, won an award from the European Space Agency last year, and will have its commercial launch next spring, according to the Guardian.