carbon footprint

noun

: the amount of greenhouse gases and specifically carbon dioxide emitted by something (such as a person's activities or a product's manufacture and transport) during a given period

Examples of carbon footprint in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Swapping beef with farmed mussels can reduce your carbon footprint, which lowers your environmental impact.28 A 100-gram serving of mussels contains 23.8 grams of protein, which is just 1 gram less than what's found in the same serving of ground beef. —Jillian Kubala, Health, 8 July 2025

The final product is pipeline-grade RNG, indistinguishable from natural gas but with a negative carbon footprint. —David Blekhman, Forbes.com, 7 July 2025

On paper, companies that buy credits achieve a smaller carbon footprint without needing to reduce their own emissions — for instance, by paying another vendor to plant trees or capture carbon dioxide from the air. —Danny Bakst, Fortune, 3 July 2025

Quite apart from the effects on cricket’s carbon footprint, the farce did nothing for their preparations. —Paul Newman, New York Times, 18 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1999, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for carbon footprint

• blueprint
• imprint
• misprint
• newsprint
• nonprint
• preprint
• reprint
• clint
• dint
• glint
• hint
• lint

Kids Definition

carbon footprint

noun

: the amount of greenhouse gases and especially carbon dioxide given off by something (as a person's activities or a product's manufacture and transport) during a given period