How We've Reduced Our Carbon Footprint (Revisited) Part 2

In part 1 I looked at what my family's done about our natural gas, electric, car and airflight usage. This time round I look at our secondary footprint using this website to work it out.

As you'll see below, secondary footprints come about from the goods and services people buy. So they often reflect our personal choices in life. It's important to realise that carbon calculators make no judgments about those choices. They just tell you where the carbon is and leave it up to you on what, if anything, you do next. I take the same line: I just tell you what we've done to cut our CO2. What you do next is none of my business (Unless you want to tell me how you are doing).

• Food Preferences: The difference between someone who eats red meat every day and a vegan is nearly a tonne of carbon. Red meat has the largest carbon footprint amongst the food we eat, followed by (in decreasing size of footprint), white meat, fish, and vegetables. So even a simple switch from all red to a mix of red and white meat will give you a reduction. We tend to eat mostly white meat and fish, and even have weekly veggie days.

• Organic Food: Organic food is less carbon intense than the usual stuff. It also tastes better and is chemical free. Unfortunately, it often costs more. We try to buy organic food wherever possible.

• Seasonal Food: Food grown out-of-season is generally grown with the help of artificial lighting and heat, or is grown abroad (adding to it's food miles). To be honest, I can do without green beans in winter if they have to be flown in from East Africa. We only buy seasonal veg. We even grow some of our own!

• Imported Food: Food that needs to come from abroad in a lorry, ship, or plane brings with it it's own footprint. If you buy local produce instead, you not only avoid taking on that footprint, you also support local farms and businesses.

• Fashion: Keeping up with the latest fashions means consuming more goods than are actually necessary. Since all goods have their own carbon footprint, it would add to ours faster than someone who just replaces stuff when they're worn out. So we only buy clothes when we need them.

• Packaging: Ever noticed how much unnecessary packaging is on our purchases these days? Whether it's multiple layers, oversized containers for tiny devices, masses of polystyrene, or all those shopping bags we end up throwing out. They all take energy to make. Unnecessary energy. So, we try to avoid over-packaged items (hard though that is at times) and even have re-usable shopping bags.

• Furniture and Electricals: Buying all the latest gadgets and replacing furniture on a regular basis consumes more goods than are really necessary and are expanding your footprint. We only buy what we need and use them until they wear out.

• Recycling: If you don't recycle, all that stuff you throw out adds to your footprint. Recycling stuff reduces that effect. We try to recycle or compost everything possible, even to the extent of selling/giving away what we no longer need (like kids clothes, baby cots etc).

• Recreation: Carbon intense hobbies like quad-biking, flying, or jet-skiing obviously add to your footprint. Even regular visits to the restaurant and/or cinema have an effect. We prefer walking, cycling etc. with the occasional visit to the cinema or a restaurant as a treat.

• Car Manufacture:  Every car you own adds a tonne to your footprint for similar reasons everything else you consume adds to your footprint. This is true even if they're second-hand. We have one car each.

• Financial Services: This reflects the amount of carbon the banking, insurance, and pension industry contribute. By using their services, we take on a part of that carbon (about 0.4 tonnes a year). My family uses all these services. Hard to avoid really!

Adding everything up, our secondary carbon adds about 4.14 tonnes to the family footprint, about 40% of our overall total. To be honest, I don't see us getting it any lower unless we go veggie (unlikely).

So that's how we've cut our footprint down to just 2.6 tonnes per person. I hope this has been helpful.