What’s your personal carbon footprint?

If you’ve ever wondered how much energy you consume daily, when you travel, use the heating or turn on the kettle, researchers at Cambridge University’s Computer Laboratory say they’ve got an answer.

They have developed the Personal Energy Meter (PEM), which records our indirect energy use, from the manufacture of food and goods we consume. It’s part of a wider research programme, ‘Computing for the Future of the Planet’. 

The PEM could be used as a separate device or embedded into a mobile phone. It can use social networking technology to share information that will shape lifestyles and reduce our detrimental impact on the environment. GPS technology would be implemented to estimate the energy an individual consumes on a particular bus, car or railway journey. The meter is easy to use, claimed Simon Hay, at Cambridge University’s Computer Lab. “PEM users are free to go about their day normally without manually entering data,” he said.

Could it be that monitoring individual energy consumption will become social norm? “The research is in its early stages but the growing awareness of personal responsibility to the environment combined with the popularity of social networking and willingness to share information make the idea of PEM an achievable goal,” explained Professor Hopper, head of the research programme.

Regardless of whether you care directly about how much energy you are consuming when you brew your morning cup of coffee, the PEM will be useful in creating an understanding of the environmental impact. It may also provide information on how to change individual habits to reduce heating and electricity bills. As these become costlier with fuels becoming scarcer, this is surely a welcome development.