How Trading Works

What are carbon credits?

Your carbon credits represents your 'personal carbon allowance', which means the total amount of carbon dioxide you can emit from your activities for free. These carbon credits are each equivalent to 10kg of carbon dioxide. In CarbonDAQ, you will receive a number of carbon credits according to the target set by your group.

Find out more about carbon credits

How do I trade?

Step 1: calculate your personal carbon emissions using our carbon calculator

The carbon calculator will tell you how many carbon emissions result from your lifestyle. When logged in, your 'snapshot' (on the right hand side of the page) will show you how many carbon credits this translates to.

Use the carbon calculator as honestly as you can, there's no real money to be lost!

If you have a negative carbon credit balance then you're emitting more carbon than your allowance level and you need to buy carbon credits to make up the difference.

If you have a positive balance then your emissions are lower than the allowance level and you can sell them. In the CarbonDAQ group of which you are automatically a member, this means amassing virtual pounds. If you are a member of a group, this means amassing whatever incentives the group has specified.

Step 2: change your lifestyle

Visit the 'change your lifestyle' page to find out about ways to cut your carbon emissions. It's important that you keep your carbon footprint up to date by clicking the calculate link, entering any new or different information and saving the new footprint. For example, if you put in some new energy efficient lightbulbs at home, start a car share, or take a long haul flight, enter the new information.

You can speed up your journey through the calculator by clicking on the links in the red box on the right. Always click 'save and finish'.

Step 3: get trading

Trading might seem confusing at first, but it's actually fairly straightforward. Say you go on holiday to the US, the first thing you do is buy some US dollars. You see 1 GBP (that's the market code for pounds) trading for 2 USD (the market code for dollars) and you know what it means: it costs me one pound to buy two dollars. To buy those dollars you need for your holiday, you have to sell pounds. And when you come back, you do the reverse: you sell the dollars you didn't use, and buy back your pounds.

A carbon market is no different. Think of it as two currencies, one is pounds, one is carbon. They have an exchange rate which changes like any currency, depending on who's buying and who's selling. When you need some carbon, like when you need dollars, you sell pounds and buy carbon. When you've got more carbon than you need, like when you come back from holiday, you buy pounds and sell carbon. Really, it's as simple as that.

Find out more about trading