I'm Sanchali, Founder of Commons. I tracked my carbon footprint in a spreadsheet for 6 years - AMA!

@noel_rajakumar Hi Noel, Thanks for your question! We estimate your carbon emissions based on your spending history, information about your own lifestyle choices, and third-party datasets. The goal is to give you an ~80% accurate picture of your emissions so that you can understand your highest-impact choices and progress with as little manual input as possible. For instance, if we see you spent $50 on gasoline, we'll combine data on the price of gasoline in your zipcode that day and the carbon intensity per gallon of gasoline. For a $100 purchase at Whole Foods, a vegetarian will have a lower footprint than someone who eats meat every day. You can read more detail in our blog here: https://www.thecommons.earth/blo...

@aaronoleary Thanks Adam! Honestly, it looked kind of similar to the algorithms behind our app now. It's just that Commons allows you to avoid manual input by connecting your spending data – instead of typing in what you did every day :) The basic concept is that you multiply an activity by the emissions of that activity. Within every activity, there are core assumptions and drivers that influence those emissions. With Commons - we'll see that I spent $100 at Whole Foods, and will classify this as a retail supermarket purchase. If I eat meat 1 meal a week, my carbon intensity per dollar of this purchase will be lower than someone who eats 12 meals of meat per week. That's the basic idea behind both!

@malika_cantor Thanks :) One of the most impactful actions has been adjusting my food intake. And guess what? I'm not a vegetarian. I cut my meat consumption from 12 meals a week to 1 meal a week. By doing that, I've had an impact like taking 5 cars off the road over the last 10 years. Making shifts matters. Extremes are not required!

@matthew_ritchie thank you! I really appreciate it. Silent Spring is such a classic. A couple of my other favorites: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and How Bad Are Bananas by Mike Berners-Lee. Very different approaches, but both help contribute to your own carbon intuition –developing a sense of how to bring our lives back into balance with the earth's natural carbon cycle.

@monoshitsu1974 Thanks Dale. Honestly, I saw the documentary Food, Inc. in 2012, and it piqued my curiosity – are there things I can do to lower emissions that actually matter? What's the connection between my personal choices and our collective systems? Tracking my emissions has given me a completely different outlook on life. I now use my carbon intuition in my decisionmaking. It feels like another superpower. I consider cost, time, convenience – like everyone else. But now I also consider carbon. I use it when I'm making big decisions – is it really worth it to make this trip? Or should I teleconference instead? and small ones – Should I get the Vodka Rigatoni or Lamb Ragu? I don't always pick the lower-carbon choice (just like we don't always eat salad every meal) but it helps me find balance in my daily decisionmaking. It has honestly simplified my life, saved me money, helped me live healthier, and gives me comfort that my lifestyle is more in balance with the Earth.