Footprint categories

See how Ducky divides climate footprint into categories and subcategories that are used in all our applications

An individual's carbon footprint is split into five main categories. Each main category is an aggregation of several levels of fine-grained categories. We have also established two distinct sets of categories for different uses: source-type and purpose-type.

Source-type categories

These are used to trace the origins of a portion of someone’s footprint. Source-type categories are typically used in our databases and to perform calculations. Source-type categories are distinguishable in that each has its own calculation unit: calories for food, kilometers for transport, kilowatt hours for energy, and money for goods and services. The public category is unique in that it simply describes the portion of public spending that can be attributed to an individual, and the value cannot be influenced directly by individual action. Further levels (2, 3) are defined where they’re useful, for instance in Convert endpoint specifications and variables can be seen in the technical API documentation.

Lvl	Category name	Variable name	Description
0	Energy	energy
1	District heating	districtHeating
1	Electricity	electricity
1	Fuel oil	fuelOil
1	Gas	gas
1	National household average	nationalHouseholdAverage
1	Solar panels	solarPanels
1	Wood	wood
0	Food and drink	foodAndDrink
1	Beverages	beverages
1	Dairy and eggs	dairyAndEggs
1	Seafood	seafood
1	Grain	grain
1	Meat and meat products	meatAndMeatProducts
1	Misc	misc
1	Produce	produce
1	Vegan products	veganProducts
0	Goods and services	goodsAndServices
0	Public services	publicServices
1	County	county
1	Municipality	municipality
1	National	national
0	Transport	transport
1	Private car	privateCar	Weighted average of all four-wheeler private vehicles based on propulsion type
2	Electric car	electricCar	Electric car
2	Hybrid car	hybridCar	Hybrid car
2	Fossil car	fossilCar	Gasoline or diesel car
1	Average shared car	sharedCarAverage	Weighted average of all four-wheeler cars belonging to a car collective based on propulsion type
2	Shared car	sharedCar	Average of all four-wheeler cars belonging to a car collective
3	Fossil shared car	fossilSharedCar	Gasoline or diesel car belonging to a car collective
3	Electric shared car	electricSharedCar	Electric car belonging to a car collective
3	Hybrid shared car	hybridSharedCar	Hybrid car belonging to a car collective
1	Taxi	taxi	Weighted average of taxis based on propulsion type
3	Fossil taxi	fossilTaxi	Taxi running on gasoline or diesel
3	Hybrid taxi	hybridTaxi	Taxi powered by a hybrid propulsion system
3	Electric taxi	electricTaxi	Taxi powered by electric motor
1	Average motorbike	motorbikeAverage	Weighted average of motorized two-wheeler vehicles based on propulsion type
2	Motorbike	motorbike	Average of motorized two-wheeler vehicles
3	Fossil motorbike	fossilMotorbike	Gasoline or diesel motorbike
3	Electric motorbike	electricMotorbike	Electric motorbike
1	Bus	bus	Average of all bus journeys and different propulsion types
2	Short-distance bus	busShort	Weighted average of short bus trips based on propulsion type
3	Short-distance biogas bus	bioGasBusShort	Intra-city bus running on biogas
3	Short-distance diesel bus	dieselBusShort	Intra-city bus running on diesel
3	Short-distance electric bus	electricBusShort	Intra-city bus powered by an electric motor
3	Short-distance hybrid bus	hybridBusShort	Intra-city bus powered by a hybrid engine
2	Long-distance bus	busLong	Intercity bus trips
1	Micromobility	micromobility	Average of micromobility transportation modes
2	Walking or cycling	walkBike	Walking/cycling
2	Electric bike	electricBike	Private electric bicycle
3	Electric scooter	electricScooter	Electric scooters (Lime, bolt etc.)
1	Average train	trainAverage	Weighted average of trains based on propulsion type
2	Train	train	Average of trains
3	Diesel train	dieselTrain	Train powered by diesel engine
3	Electric bus	electricTrain	Train powered by electricity
1	Flight	flight	Weighted average of passenger flights based on passenger volume
2	Domestic flight	flightDomestic	Less than 500 km
2	Continental flight	flightContinental	Between 500 km and 2000 km
2	Global flight	flightGlobal	More than 2000 km
1	Boat	boat	Average of maritime transport modes (cruise, motorboats, ferry)
2	Cruise boat	cruiseBoat	Cruise boat for long journeys
3	Electric motor boat	electricMotorBoat	High-speed boat powered by electric motor
3	Fossil motor boat	fossilMotorBoat	High-speed boat powered by fossil fuel
3	Car passenger on a ferry	ferryCarPassenger	Passenger traveling by car on a ferry
3	Foot passenger on a ferry	ferryFootPassenger	Foot passenger on a ferry

Purpose-type categories

These are used to calculate footprint from monetary transactions or display footprint numbers to an end user, splitting carbon footprint into relatable categories. We currently only use purpose-type categories in some cases, where the raw source data is unhelpful for a user.

Lvl	Category name	Variable name
0	Energy	energy
1	Appliances	appliances
1	Cabin	cabin
1	Heat	heat
1	Light	light
1	Water	water
0	Food and drink	foodAndDrink
0	Goods and services	goodsAndServices
1	Clothes and shoes	clothesAndShoes
1	Education	education
1	Furniture and equipment	furnitureAndEquipment
1	Housing and maintenance	housingAndMaintenance
1	Personal purchases	personalPurchases
1	Personal services	personalServices
1	Services	services
1	Transport	transport
0	Public services	publicServices
0	Transport	transport
1	Holiday	holiday
1	Leisure	leisure
1	Work	work