KEY POINTS:
Aaron Harvey now knows he buys too many clothes and eats too much meat.
Thanks to the footprint calculator, the 24-year-old Christchurch interior designer discovered he came out higher than the average New Zealander in his ecological foot size.
Despite not owning a car, Mr Harvey's carbon footprint is 34,887 sq m, 4000 sq m higher than the average.
He concedes he has "way too many clothes" but adds he never throws them out, instead selling them when he tires of them.
"My major downfall is I buy too much crap. This has made me reassess my credit card bill."
Mr Harvey said it was difficult to accept he clearly spent too much.
"It's awful. I don't want to stop having fun because it's bad for the planet."
He took some comfort, however, in living in a flat where food scraps were composted and energy-efficient light bulbs used.
And Warren and Mahoney, the architecture firm where he works, prides itself on environmentally sustainable design and is soon expected to register as carbon neutral with the carboNZero initiative.
The programme, created by Landcare Research, encourages and supports individuals and organisations to minimise their impacts on climate change by providing them with tools to measure, manage and mitigate their CO2 emissions.
CarboNZero certification is made available through a third-party audit to establish criteria are met, and unavoidable emissions can be offset by purchasing carbon credits.
Mr Harvey can perhaps also rest a little easier given that he does well compared to former American vice- president Al Gore, the international champion of climate change policies.
It was revealed not long after Gore picked up an Oscar for his film An Inconvenient Truth that his 20-room mansion in Nashville used more electricity in a month than the average American used in an entire year - although apparently he buys energy credits to offset his monstrous carbon footprint.
