Commons carbon app review: Calculate your carbon footprint based on how you spend money
Commons logo
More people are beginning to wonder what their carbon footprint is. Carbon emissions are a point of interest in climate change because there evidence that increased carbon emissions leads to changing climates globally.
Commons (formerly Joro) attempts to answer the question “what is my carbon footprint?” by approximating carbon emissions based on the things you spend money on, like gas, plane tickets, online purchases, etc. In their own words: "Every purchase is an opportunity for action."
Quick takeaways:
I like this app. Once the app was set up and configured to accurately reflect my data, it was a great tool to get a baseline idea of what my carbon footprint is, how it changes from month to month, and what behavioral changes I can make to reduce my carbon footprint. It’s intuitive and well-designed for mobile. It’s easy to navigate, connect your banking, and see your carbon footprint and comparisons.
Best used weekly or monthly. This app is most useful to monitor your monthly carbon footprint, see which categories are your biggest contributors, and to learn about changing your behaviors to reduce your carbon impact.
Cost: free. Unless you want to pay for carbon offsets.
Available on iOS and Android in the US and Canada. More info in their FAQs.
Side note: I’m not being paid to write this, or affiliated with Commons. Yes, I spend my free time writing app reviews. No further questions.
Before we get into individual carbon footprints, let’s set the scene and understand the biggest drivers of carbon emissions.
What are carbon emissions and how do they impact the environment?
First, let’s recall that “gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are called greenhouse gases.” Trapping heat contributes to climate change.
In 2021, carbon dioxide accounted for almost 80% of all human-generated greenhouse gasses. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, trees, and waste contribute to carbon emissions. Carbon emissions are of interest not only because it’s the largest volume of gasses, but also because people affect it the most.
Because it’s difficult to attribute emissions to a single source, there are many ways to categorize greenhouse emissions. Here are two categorization examples with data from Our World in Data and the EPA:
Original EPA chart and original Our World in Data chart
Why does an individual’s carbon footprint matter?
An individual’s carbon footprint will vary based on their transportation habits, energy usage, how much you shop, and the kinds of food in your diet. In aggregate, people changing their behavior can make a difference in carbon emissions. This is the crux of Commons’ purpose: “Commons helps you grow your carbon intuition so we can shrink our collective impact.”
Interestingly, while reviewing the history of carbon footprints, the Commons website states that “While BP is in the business of producing fossil fuels, they used carbon footprints to divert responsibility and pass guilt onto individuals.” Although the Commons app primarily functions as a measure for individuals, I appreciated this transparent critique of placing carbon emissions responsibility on people vs corporations, and the awareness that corporations also have a responsibility to address them.
How to navigate Commons
The Commons app is made up of three main sections: Footprint, Practice, and Community. This covers your own carbon footprint, ways to reduce your carbon footprint, and a mini social feed to see how others are adopting carbon-friendly practices.
Footprint
This is the main part of the app. Here, you get your approximated carbon emissions by month, going as far back as two years upon connection. At the top, it tells you your carbon emissions, and your offsets. Emissions are calculated based on your banking data. Offsets can be purchased within the app.
Emissions
Categorization of my spending: In my experience, the out-of-the-box data was very inaccurate and required a LOT of manual updating and effort. For example, several purchases at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park were categorized as “T-Mobile” under “Telecommunications.” If you want an accurate footprint, you will need to do manual re-categorization. However, there is a section to provide feedback about the auto-assigned categories, and the feedback does go to an actual human.
My carbon footprint: It’s interesting to have a ballpark estimation of my carbon footprint, and to see how it compares to previous months. What makes it even more useable, in my opinion, is benchmark comparisons.
Without benchmarks, it’s hard to understand what your carbon footprint really means. These tell you your carbon footprint compared to “the average user” and people in your state (mine is Washington state). Someday I’d love to see additional comparisons to people in your income level, your zip code, your age, your household size, etc.
Connecting my bank: Initially, I was skeptical about connecting my banking data to an app. While they address connection safety in the FAQs, there is always some risk when you share your banking information with a third party. But in the name of knowledge, I did.
I connected two accounts: A big, nationwide bank, and a small credit union.
The small credit union had trouble with the connection thinking it was a data breach for one week before it disconnected the connection entirely, and I did not re-connect it. The large credit card is still connected and doesn’t seem to have an issue with being perma-linked to the app.
Carbon calculation methodology: As a non-scientist, the methodology of carbon calculations seems legit to me. If nothing else, it is thorough and transparent. This clever method of approximating carbon emissions via your spending habits seems like a good proxy to measure your carbon footprint.
Ongoing monthly data is automated: This cannot be understated and is a HUGE feature of this app. After you connect your banking information once, it automatically syncs and updates going forward.
Offsets
I haven’t purchased an offset through this app, yet. The jury is out on whether offsets actually make a difference, and one criticism is that buying offsets imply that you can pay your way out of your carbon footprint. More useful ways to affect change of your carbon footprint are outlined in the “Practice” section of the app.
If you do decide to pay for offsets, there is an option to set up a monthly auto-payment which is recommended based on your previous spending habits. Commons has created an Offset Explainer to outline how offsets work.
Practice
This section is educational, and provides you with tangible recommendations on how to reduce your carbon footprint. Each practice has a category (Food & Drink, Travel, Finances, etc) and has an assigned impact from low to high.
Each Practice has a “Build Your Practice” section which has educational information about the practice you’ve chosen, and makes adapting these practices achievable.
Community
The Community section is similar to a social feed. People can post anecdotes or photos about their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, such as composting, air-drying laundry, and even general sustainability practices like reducing plastic waste. I initially doubted the usefulness of yet another social media feed, but found that I really enjoyed scrolling through people’s photos and updates.
Are there comparable carbon emission calculators or apps?
Apps
Although there are a number of other apps, Commons is the only one I’ve tried myself. TravelPerk recommends “The 6 best carbon footprint tracker apps” (with Joro aka Commons at #2), and Footprint Hero recommends “9 Best Eco-Friendly Apps for Reducing Your Carbon Footprint.”
Calculators
Here are two examples of carbon footprint calculators:
Do I recommend Commons carbon app?
I recommend checking Commons out if you meet the following criteria:
Are willing to connect your personal banking data to an app
Are willing to manually correct your data upon connecting your backing so that it’s accurate and useable
Want to learn about practical ways to offset your carbon emission
I do think think it’s the most creative proxy to determine someone’s carbon footprint. I don’t think that any carbon emissions app can be exact, but Commons does give you a good attempt at a baseline.