What Can I Do?

We can all do our bit to lower greenhouse gas emissions both at home and at the office. Here’s the GWA’s guide to ways in which you can help. The added bonus is you save money at the same time.

A. In the house.

Turn off lights when you leave the room. If you are the last to leave the office take a minute to make sure all unnecessary lights and electrical appliances are off.

Turn off the TV with the power switch at night rather than leaving it in standby mode. This applies equally to computers, stereos, and photocopiers.

When your light bulbs burn out consider replacing them with energy efficient halogen. These consume half the electricity of a conventional light bulb. They also last twice as long.

Rooms such as utility rooms could be fitted with a fluorescent light. This is a very cost effective option. Fluorescents have a life of about 8000 hours and consume only 20% as much electricity as the incandescent type.

When replacing kitchen equipment, check out the relative efficiency of the refrigerator, washing machine and dryer. The EU labelling rates this. Look for a product in the A or A+ category. Energy efficient appliances can make a big difference to your CO2 emissions—as much as 100kgs a year for a fridge and 200kgs for a washing machine.

Can you live with a slightly lower temperature in the house? Just turning the thermostat down one degree will cut your emissions and save real cash on your heating—with gas bills rising as oil gets scarcer this makes a lot of financial as well as environmental sense.

If you haven’t already done so insulate your loft with 150mm fibreglass or the equivalent. If your house is of brick cavity construction, for the cost of a few hundred pounds you can have insulation pumped into the wall. This will reduce your heating bills massively, as well as cut down on external sound nuisances such as aircraft noise.

If you already have double glazed windows, adding another panel to make them triple glazed is well worth the expenditure and will pay for itself over time.

Although not as useful as in sunnier climes solar heating panels will cut your water heating bills when used to complement a conventional system. They are installed on the roof, ideally on the south facing side. The drawback is the installation cost. However, once in place they require little maintenance.

Wind generators are becoming popular and doubtless will reduce in cost as they become more common. You will have to check with your local planning authority as to their requirements on siting and whether planning permission is required.

B. Around the House

Have a look around your garden. If it could benefit from the addition of a tree or two put them in. Trees can remove 20 kilos of carbon in a year through photosynthesis.

Buy a composter for your leaves and lawn clippings. Contact your local authority for any cheap deals they may be promoting. If you take your garden waste to the council tip it will take a lot of energy for them to compost it. Doing it yourself avoids that step.

Recycle as much as possible in the way of glass bottles, cans and plastic. It has been calculated that the average family home can reduce their CO2 emissions by as much as 350kgs per year by recycling these items alone.

C. At the Supermarket

Check out the packaging. Buy food with recyclable packaging to reduce your landfill input. Landfills are a major source of methane gas, which traps 21 times more heat than CO2. Any way you can reduce the amount of refuse that goes into the garbage bin will make a big difference over a year to the health of the planet.

Buy recycled paper whenever possible for routine tasks on the computer printer etc.

D. Transport

If the time is coming up to replace your car have a good look at the options beginning to come on to the market. Hybrid vehicles (which use both petrol and electricity) are now available. Toyoto has released the Prius which is highly economical at over 60MPG. There are also ethanol powered vehicles being produced such as the Ford Focus. The time is fast approaching when the Chelsea Tractor will be seen as quite anti-social. The potential saving in CO2 emissions for a car which gets 40+mpg compared to a typical 4X4 is 2000 kgs per year.

Keep your tyres correctly inflated to cut down on fuel consumption. Keep your engine fine tuned for maximum efficiency.

Do you really have to drive to the village for a paper or a container of milk? Get fitter and ride a bike. You might even start to enjoy the experience

Ken Livingstone has been pushing public transport, but he might have a point. Could that trip be done just as easily by train or bus? Also, if you have to go to work by car is there any way you can arrange a car pool? A couple of days a week of leaving the car in the garage will reduce your CO2 emissions by 600 to 700 kgs per year.

Think about your car trips and try to make them energy efficient by combining jobs together.

E. Holidays

Unfortunately for the aviation industry aircraft are the big contributor to CO2 emissions. On a long haul flight the equivalent of a third of a passenger’s body weight and baggage weight is burnt off in fuel. Also, jet aircraft burn kerosene, which is not a particularly clean fuel. Perhaps you can holiday this year closer to home and save all that CO2 output. Or do you have to get to your chosen destination by aircraft? Train travel is getting quicker as more and more high speed networks are constructed and you can avoid all those lengthy queues at the airport terminals.

If you do less than half of the above you will reduce your emissions by 5000 kgs a year. This is very significant amount and a worthwhile contribution to stabilizing climate change.