My Search to Find a Carbon Calculator Tool Anyone with a Smartphone Can Use is 50% Accomplished

May 31, 2019 – While at Collision 2019 last week I met Chrystal Gilkes, the founder of Edwel Energy and the SWRM carbon footprint calculator. This Melbourne, Australia-based company is in the process of changing what we consume every day by allowing us to calculate the impact of all types of products including food on the environment.

Why do I state that in finding SWRM I have accomplished 50% of my goal to find the perfect carbon calculation tool for consumers? Because so far, SWRM, a downloadable application for smartphones is only available on iPhone platforms. In conversation with Gilkes she indicated that an Android version of the application is pending with the only thing holding it up, the company’s newness and lack of resources to have completed both application versions. As an Android smartphone user I cannot download the application as of yet, but I could visit the company’s website and play the online versions that are there, one called the Carbon Footprint Calculator, and the second, a Seasonal Produce Guide for calculating the carbon contribution of fresh fruits and vegetables you buy. On the former’s page there is a link to the App Store where you can get SWRM for free.

I have played around with a number of carbon calculators since I first started assessing tools that the average consumer can use to help mitigate the carbon crisis. I have written about initiatives in Switzerland to have carbon content information included on all consumer packaging so that purchasers can assess the sustainability of one product versus another. To date, I have seen and assessed more than 30 tools and even attempted to create a footprint calculator on my own which I have subjected a number of people to for feedback. I have found the creation of such tools to be a very difficult task indeed.

But having run across SWRM and having talked with Gilkes while at Collision 2019, I, for the first time, see a means by which all of us with smartphones in hand can become engaged in altering our buying behaviour to help sustain the planet.

On the SWRM website it states, “we are passionate about changing the planet. Or to be more accurate, not changing the planet’s climate. Climate science has taught us that we are living above the sustainable limit of our carbon footprint.” But unless we know what that footprint is, unless we have the hard data to make sustainable decisions, it becomes difficult for individuals to make a difference.

The name SWRM honours the honeybee with the beehive being described on the company’s website as “the most efficient system in existence.” Whether the science of this statement is well proven or not, the app the company has created can lead to swarm behaviour, a combined collective activity that all of us can do in our daily lives with the purpose of fostering the planet’s sustainability. The goal in using SWRM is to eventually achieve a personal carbon footprint below the planetary sustainable limit.

If you are an iPhone owner and reader of this blog, I encourage you to try the application. It is quite simple to use. When you go to do comparison shopping, scan the barcode of different products and compare the energy contribution of each, or change the selection to compare carbon contribution. It is an eye-opener.