CALM, Carbon Accounting for Land Managers, is the first, fully-free, business activity-based calculator showing the balance between annual emissions of the key Greenhouse Gases (GHGs)and carbon sequestration associated with the activities of land-based businesses.

The calculator measures emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from a land-management business and any carbon which is stored in soil and trees. 

The emissions come from:

• Energy and fuel use,
• Livestock,
• Cultivation and land-use change,
• The application of nitrogen fertilisers and lime.

These are balanced against carbon sequestration in soil and trees.

The calculator also assesses the impact of Environmental Stewardship options. This is calculated as a partial budget to estimate what would be saved following entry into Stewardship or what has been saved where the business is already in the scheme. It is not a measure of carbon capture (sequestration) but the annual change in emission pre and post entry, although some of the changes, such as new grass margins on arable land do sequester carbon (where they remain in place).

Understanding the carbon balance of a business is a vital first step towards thinking about management decisions that may have some mitigating effect on climate change by reducing GHG emissions.

The calculator has been updated with the latest UK National Inventory Report (1990-2006) data published in April 2009. This may change the output from previously entered data.

Working through the steps below will help you calculate your carbon balance and understand the results.

• Step 1 - Get your data together. You will need physical data for crops, stock and energy use.
• Step 2 - Log-in (on menu bar) to enter your farm details or if you have previously used the calculator select a farm profile that has already been created by clicking on it.
• Step 3 - Create a calculation for the farm selected. If you have already created calculations for the farm selected you may also modify, copy or use any of these, also by clicking on the description.
• Step 4 - Enter data in the input screen. For more guidance visit the Help page.
• Step 5 - When finished obtain your CALM report by clicking "Report" at the top of the screen and choosing the output format you require.
• Step 6 - Use the mitigation advisory notes, available from the reports section, to assess ways you can improve your carbon balance.

All data is saved as it is entered. You can come back to it later and add to it or copy it or clone the data for subsequnet modification to test "what if" assumptions.  Where data is entered under a particular section heading make sure that values are entered into any other related inputs for that section even if it is zero (e.g. where a crop tonnage produced is entered and no straw is moved from the farm, enter zero for the straw).

Privacy is guaranteed. Additional notes can be found on the Help page.

The Further Reading page gives more information and web links to the references and sources used in our research for CALM.  Click to see how CALM fits the international guidelines for greenhouse gas accounting.

 "CALM is an excellent first step, and offers a useful tool to land-managers" Prof. Gareth Edwards-Jones Professor of Agriculture & Land-Use Studies at the University of Wales, Bangor (CALM peer reviewer).