Entrepreneur launches first-of-its kind online carbon offsetting calculator
Calculates daily activities including social scrolling, coffee making and more
Carbon usage analysis and offsetting can be done in seconds
Carbon is offset by planting wildflowers
Land is managed and protected for 30+ years to enable biodiversity to thrive
One square metre of wildflowers will feed 24 bees each year for 30 years
An online carbon calculator, My Square Metre, which identifies often overlooked daily carbon-
producing activities and offsets through wildflower planting, has launched to market.
First of its kind My Square Metre has simple to use online calculators to work out carbon usage for
everyday activities including TikTok scrolling, to how much tea and coffee we’re consuming. It
equates that carbon to a precise wildflower offset solution with a cost within seconds.
Using wildflower planting to offset carbon is highly effective as wildflowers sequester carbon within
the first year of planting, in comparison to tree planting which can take years to sequester CO2.
Passionate environmentalist and founder of My Square Metre, Ed Crowther, identified that when
people consider personal or business carbon production, the focus was almost always on transport,
utilities or paper, and more everyday social activities – which have rapidly grown over the last 10-15
years – were not being considered, such as social media use, content creation, emails, video
meetings and hot drinks.
The average person each month drinks approximately 120 cups of tea or coffee, sends 1,200 and
receives 3,630 emails (including junk) and spends 75 hours on social media. With a combined 14.4Kg
of carbon produced from these three activities alone, it is the equivalent of boiling 360 kettles.
Ed also found that when we look at carbon offsetting, tree planting is often the most popular choice,
when in fact planting wildflowers is a more efficient route to both offsetting carbon and boosting
biodiversity, which wildflowers do above and below ground.
With a life-long interest in eco-systems, frustration on how we use carbon holistically and concern
for the sharp decline in habitats in Britain – 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost since the
second world war, and 53% of native plants have been lost in the last 20 years due to human
impacts* – Ed wanted to take action and left his job working for a custom head company to create a
platform that would offer people fast, easy, and affordable carbon offsetting while boosting
biodiversity.
My Square Metre was born and is set to revolutionise personal and business carbon offsetting with
its simplicity and affordability.
Once the carbon calculator has been used, the user can offset with a one off or monthly payment for
the wildflower planting and the team at My Square Metre do the rest.
Ed and his team source the land, find out what it needs to make it ideal for wildflower growth,
prepare it and then plant. When users buy a square metre or more of wildflower planting, it is
protected by My Square Metre for a minimum of 30 years, giving habitats time to start, flourish and
mature, enabling real change to biodiversity.
Founder, Ed Crowther, said: “My Square Metre was born out of a love for biodiversity and an idea to
offer something that was missing in the market. While looking at other offerings, there was very
little that combined supporting biodiversity and carbon reduction at the same time, and a lot of the
tools were quite blunt i.e. what industry are you in x how many employees = this much CO2.
“I wanted to give people the option to micro offset their actions, ensuring traceability and
transparency. For our users, we hope to be a good resource to help them lower their environmental
impact and they get full transparency, they know the location of their wildflowers and the exact
amount of carbon being offset.
“One of the starkest findings is that non-native plants now outnumber native species in the UK &
Ireland, a change which the report warns has huge consequences for the animals that rely on native
plants. 53% of Britain’s native species have declined, including harebells and heather, due to factors
such as agricultural intensification and climate change. Only together can we achieve meaningful
change, as the majority of lost meadowland is under farming ownership.
“Through My Square Metre, we are giving biodiversity space to thrive and monitoring it to make
sure we are doing everything we can, especially for struggling native species. We are also helping to
lower the carbon in the atmosphere by putting it into the ground and regenerating depleted soil at
the same time.”
Social media heavily dominates our online time and while we are scrolling, we are unaware of the
carbon we are causing. As an example, to boil 1.7L of water with a new kettle produces 40g of
carbon. The same carbon is created by using TikTok for 15 mins, Facebook for 62 minutes or
Instagram for 38 minutes.
Ed’s hope is that we will all do our bit and now that My Square Metre has been created, more
people will be aware of everyday carbon usage and know how to efficiently offset it. If every person
planted one square metre of wildflowers, it would plant enough meadow to cover Bradford in
wildflower meadow.
Interested in making a difference? Please visit the My Square Metre website to learn more about
your carbon usage and how to offset with wildflower planting – My Square Metre.
- Plant Atlas 2020, published by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. A 20-year research project.
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