Chocolate calculator has encouraged people to cycle and walk

Both decision-makers and residents are interested in cutting carbon emissions. Thus, a variety of instruments and incentives have been developed to evaluate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from travel and public procurement.

HSL’s Journey Planner (http://www.reittiopas.fi/en) tells the carbon emissions of a given journey and provides alternative public transport routes as well as walking and cycling routes for the journey. The Journey Planner also provides calorie consumption information to encourage people to walk and cycle. The calories burned on a journey are expressed as pieces of chocolate. The so called chocolate calculator can be found on the ‘Further information’ page of the Journey Planner’s carbon calculator as well as in the Journey Planner for Cycling (http://pk.hsl.fi/en). In a user survey conducted by HSL, a vast majority of those who had noticed the calorie consumption information said that the calculator results had encouraged them to walk and cycle more.

People can evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions of their weekday (Mon-Fri) journeys using HSL's Jälki calculator (www.hsl.jalki.fi/en). The calculator also provides tips for climate-friendly travel.

Calculator helps compare emissions of products 

Carbon calculators have been developed also for municipalities to help compare products being procured. The new carbon footprint calculators for public procurement enable cities and municipalities to estimate the carbon footprint of IT products, paper, office seats, incontinence products, and outdoor lighting products as part of their tendering processes. In addition, general guidelines on how to take greenhouse gas emissions into account in public procurements, have been developed.

The carbon footprint calculators for travel and public procurement were produced as part of Julia 2030 project. Calculation tools were developed also for evaluating and comparing greenhouse gas emissions from waste management and use of premises. During the course of the project, 640 new so called eco-support persons were trained for the municipalities to guide and encourage their working communities to adopt climate-friendly behavior.

The Julia 2030 project was coordinated by Helsinki Region Environmental Services. Participants in the project included Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen, Kirkkonummi, Kerava, HSL and the Finnish Environment Institute. The project reinforced the climate work of the Helsinki region municipalities and joint local authorities. The three-year project received funding from the EU LIFE+ program.