Our Family Carbon Footprint

This last year's been a time of great change in our efforts to reduce our footprint.

Electric

We had to come off the green tariff (where all our electric effectively came from renewable sources). The reason being that the power companies all hiked their prices by 20% last year and we were looking for savings. For some reason, green tariffs are now 10% more than their non-green counterparts. Clearly the  energy companies were taking us for mugs, so we moved.

That unfortunately meant that our electric usage now appears on our footprint. The good news is that we've been cutting our electric usage anyway and we've had solar panels fitted. As a result, the 2.71 tonne footprint for electric has come down to 1.69. The panels would have accounted for about .6 of that 1.02 reduction.

Gas

This has come down from 3.4t to 2.7t in the last year, mainly due to our new loft insulation.

Clearly all this reduction in carbon footprint is also saving us money. In fact, we're paying less for our duel fuel bill than before the power company raised their prices. They even had to give us a refund and cut our direct debits. Result!

Travel

Switching jobs (not by choice) means I have to travel further to work. I decided to use the bus instead of the car but the increased mileage has pushed the footprint up here. The car usage total is 2.59t which is down slightly because I'm using the car less, however the bus adds .081t. So our total there is 3.4t, up from 2.63t (a difference of about .8t).

Solar Panels

The total saving from our panels is 1.63 tonnes. At the moment, we probably only use a third of the electric it generates, the rest goes back to the grid, which offsets 1.09t.

Secondary Footprint

This reflects our lifestyle choices and doesn't really change from year to year. It's unchanged at 4.0t.

Summary

Our total carbon footprint is 10.7t or 2.675 per person. If we left out the middle-class bling like our solar panels and the Prius, our footprint would be 13t or 3.25t pp. That's still considerably down on the average UK footprint of about 10t pp. Keeping our footprint this low is not only better for the climate but it saves us a fortune on energy bills.

If you want to calculate your footprint, try here.

More detail about how we do it.

How We've Cut Our Heating Bill

Regular readers of this blog will know that we've been trying to cut our fuel bills without having to throw big money around.

The graph you see above represents our gas usage over the last 2 years and, as you can see, we've achieved a sizeable cut so far - over 20% if you ignore that peak caused by last year's harsh winter - and the graph continues to fall.

Although we've got gas heating, what follows applies whatever fuel you use.

The most cost effective way of cutting your fuel bill is to insulate your home as I explain here. Basically, the insulation can pay for itself within 2 to 3 years and will not break the bank. Without it, you're spending a fortune heating the street outside!

If you can't afford it then, if you're a UK citizen, you will be able to make use of the Green Deal next Autumn, which'll make it even easier to insulate your home.

Anyway, what the graph has shown me is that it wasn't until we insulated our loft that we really began to make savings: Even with the cavity wall insulation, double glazing, and draft proofing, there was no 'lid' on our house, so all the heat just went out through the roof. The 2 month period over which the loft work was done, marks the beginning of that steep decline you see in the graph.

The lesson seems to be that, whilst any insulation is better than none, you won't see the full benefit until you've sealed all the leaks.

How We've Reduced Our Carbon Footprint: What Next?

Earlier this year I described how my family's managed to cut our annual carbon footprint to just 2.68 tonnes per head, or about 10.7 for the family. That is about a quarter of the average in the UK.

This hasn't been done by spending a small fortune on things like solar panels or by going out of our way to be green (like giving up our car). It's been done by a series of simple and cheap steps that virtually anyone could do themselves. So cheap, in fact, that those steps have paid for themselves very quickly through savings on gas, electric, and petrol.

The bottom line is that we not only have a small footprint, but we're also saving hundreds of pounds every year into the bargain.

But what now? Can we make any more progress?

To be honest, there was only one cheap and simple thing left to do: Insulate our loft.

That's done now, probably taking another 0.5 to 1.0 tonne off our total, and should pay for itself through savings on the heating bills within 1 or 2 years.

After that, well, it all gets a bit expensive. Stuff like solar panels, air source heating, or wood pellet stoves would take up to 10 years to pay for themselves. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

The point is I've shown that it is possible to cut your family's carbon footprint down substantially, with few sacrifices in your lifestyle, whilst actually saving money.

Give it go, you might surprise yourself.

Diary of a Noobie Prius Owner (Part 2)

Part 1 here.

When I first came up with this diary idea, I thought I'd have enough material for several posts. But, as it turns out, the Prius isn't a whole lot different from any other car. So I think this'll probably be the only sequel...

I've now owned the Prius for 2 months and I'm still loving it. My mpg around town varies between 50 and 58 depending on traffic conditions. The average is probably around 53,5. About double my old car. That means I can probably go about 2 months between visits to the petrol station.

The driving experience is great. It's quiet, smooth, has surprising acceleration when I need it (thanks to help from the electric side of the engine), and there's no mucking about with gears (It's an automatic). I seem to have become a lot calmer driver as a result of all this. An unexpected bonus!

I also like all the storage space, the Satnav, the reversing camera, and cruise control. All very useful. There's also the 'Parking Assist' feature which can park the car automatically. Not tried it yet, but I suspect it would take so long to set up, you'd just annoy your fellow road users as you blocked the road or car park.

Energy Monitor

Something I've been curious about is what the colour coding on the Energy Monitor screen means. You'll notice on the picture opposite that there's a box labelled 'Battery' and it's green. Most of the time it's blue. Occasionally it will be pink.

Basically it's an indicator of the battery's charge level. Green = highest, Blue = middle, Pink = lowest. There's no ideal colour because the Prius manages the charge itself, keeping the battery at an optimum level to extend it's life for as long as possible. It aims to ensure the battery's never fully charged or discharged: Switching to the electric motor when the charge is high; and using the engine to recharge the battery when it's low. Toyota's own tests indicate that the battery should get to over 180,000 miles with no appreciable loss of efficiency. No wonder the warranty lasts for 8 years. More detail here.

Part 3 here.

Diary of a Noobie Prius Owner

So, it's 2 weeks since I bought a 2007 Toyota Prius T Spirit. Here's what I've discovered so far.

If you're European then the most obvious difference between a Prius and a standard car is it's an automatic. None of that endless mucking about with clutches and gear-changing when you're in town or heavy traffic. Plus, with the Prius, you don't get the poor fuel economy that usually goes with an automatic.

The 'Key'

Starting the car takes a bit of getting used to: 'Key' in it's slot on the dash; foot on the brake; press the Power button; put it in Drive; foot-brake off; and you're away.

About that "foot-brake": The Prius doesn't have a hand-brake - Presumably because they wanted maximise the amount of storage in the centre of the car- instead it has a foot-brake down where the clutch would have been. It seems to act just like the hand-brake (i.e. It's a mechanical thing rather than a glorified electronic switch), so it's not too difficult to get used to. It's just a bit....different.

Driving home after buying it was interesting - A 90 mile journey, mostly on motorways - I was a bit unsure about over-taking because I hadn't figured out the blind spots. The view out the rear window is limited (The worst aspect of Prius) so you're more reliant on your side-mirrors and looking over your shoulder. Anyway, I think I've figured it out now.

Strangely, given that rear window, reversing seems easier in the Prius than with my old car (a Primera).

Fuel economy: I've only been on one motorway journey so far (See above) but I still hit the manufacturer's 'extra-urban' miles per gallon figure. It seems to be all about driving smoothly (No heavy braking or acceleration) and sticking to the speed limit.

Fuel Consumption Monitor

Their urban figure (56 mpg) takes a little more thought but I'm regularly getting 53.5 now. The technique seems to be more smooth driving, accelerating steadily up to the speed limit (no hanging about necessary), then lifting your accelerator foot until you're just maintaining the speed. When I do this, I generally find the fuel consumption monitor (see picture) shoots up to 75 to 100 mpg! Unfortunately, there's not much you can do when going uphill or when the engine's first started. You just have to take the hit.

Insulating Our Loft

Ever wondered how to insulate your loft to the recommended depth and yet still use it for storage? Well, this is how we're tackling that problem at the moment:

We need the loft for storage, so the whole area needs boarding over. But, if we boarded over the current floor joists, it wouldn't allow for the recommended depth of insulation of 270mm (approx 11") - The joists are only 100mm (4") deep which would leave us 170mm short.

We could put down more lengths of wood on top of the joists at right-angles, allowing us to put down 1 layer of insulation between the joists, then another, at right-angles, between the new timbers, and put boards on top. However, building up the floor another 170mm (7") would reduce the amount of useful storage space in our loft too much (Thanks to things like the slope of the roof etc).

So we've decided to raise the floor by about 75mm, giving us room for 175mm of insulation, and put another 100mm of insulation between the roof joists.


Work is currently underway. We hope to be cutting those gas bills very soon....

P.S. The big bonus is that, due to special deals at the DIY stores, we got enough insulation material to do our whole loft for only £90.

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.

How We've Reduced Our Carbon Footprint (Revisited)

Last August I posted a piece with a similar title. Whilst it gives some useful hints on how to reduce your carbon footprint, I wanted to do a more detailed breakdown of how we got it down to only 2.6 tonnes per person: Just over a quarter of the UK average. I hope you find it useful.

Heating
This is a sizeable chunk of any brit's footprint. Ours is 3.43 tonnes (or 18500 kWh) per year from gas central heating. This compares with average gas usage for a house our size (4 bed semi) of 5.37t or 29000 kWh. So our bills are over a third less than average. Looks like we're doing something right!

Here's what we're doing:

• We have cavity wall insulation. It cost us less than £200 to install and it helps stop up to 35% of heat loss. It probably paid for itself within 2 years. Highly recommended if appropriate for your home.

• The house was double glazed throughout when we bought it. Some is aluminium framed, so isn't the most efficient but it could be saving us up to 10% of heat loss. 

• We've draught proofed the house for less than £30 which saves up to 15% of heat. Cheap and easy to do. Recommended. 

• Loft insulation: We have very little at the moment but I'm working on it. We should have that in place by Spring. 25% of heat is lost through the roof, yet you can insulate your loft for around £200 including labour (thanks to government incentives). It should pay for itself within a couple of years too. Well worth the investment. 

• Our radiators all have thermostats, and our heating is on a timer, controlled by a central thermostat set at 20 degrees C. Just 1 celsius reduction can save up to 10% of your heating bill.

• We replaced our old, unreliable gas boiler with a new, A rated condenser boiler 2 or 3 years ago. Modern boilers are much more efficient than old ones. They could save you up to 40% on your heating bill. Gas boilers are expensive to replace though (£1000 to £2000 including labour), so they take several years to pay for themselves. If you're going to replace yours anyway, check out ones using renewable fuels, you may pick up incentives from the government through RHIs.

Electric
We use 5000 kWh per year which is equivalent to 2.71 tonnes of CO2. The average is 6000 kWh (3.26 t). So we're saving about 17% on our bills.


We have all the usual stuff: 2 LCD TVs; 2 DVD players; 4 PCs/laptops/netbooks; games console; 2 satellite boxes; power shower; dishwasher; washing machine; tumble dryer; freezer; and fridge/freezer.


So where are the savings? We do a lot of things mentioned here. In particular, all our lights are energy savers, we don't overfill the kettle, our TV screens aren't huge (around 23") so aren't particularly hungry, lights are turned off when we leave rooms, all appliances are A rated (replaced as they died), we have short showers (power showers use a lot of electric), run the dishwasher full, and try not to leave anything on stand-by.


We also try to use Economy 7 (low rate) electric wherever possible. This has nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do with saving us money.


In fact, all the above is about saving money because our fuel bills are on a green tariff i.e. The electric comes from a renewable source (in our case, hydro-electric) which means it's zero/low carbon. A quick and painless way of taking 2.7 tonnes off our footprint.


Check here for a way to get to grips with your electric bills.

Transport
We get around using a Nissan Primera and a Nissan Almera. They average only about 5000 miles a year each (We both work locally). Total footprint 2.96 tonnes. If we did the national average mileage (10k), that would double the footprint.


If we wanted to cut our emissions further we'd need to find more economical cars, perhaps try diesels or hybrids. If we wanted to really go for it, we could use public transport to get to work, or cycle/walk, but this would make life difficult, especially for my wife. So we're sticking with the cars for now.

Flights
This is probably one of the main areas where we differ from other people. 

We tend to holiday a lot in Britain and countries we can drive to. So, only about 1 in 4 of our holidays involve flights. When we do fly, we use carbon offsets to compensate for the added emissions.


Coming Up:  Okay, that's enough for the moment. In part 2, I'll look at my family's 'secondary carbon footprint': The emissions that come about as a result of our lifestyle choices. 

Until then, if you want to work out your own carbon footprint, try this website.

Arrghh!

I'm currently trying to chase 3 carbon footprint reducing ideas at the moment, and I'm being frustrated in all of them:

1) Car sharing/Cycling: As you can read here, I've been working on this for a while now, trying to cut out as many journeys to work as possible. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons beyond my control, I've not managed to cut more than 2 journeys a week. And I can't see this changing for months.

2) Changing My Car: Ideally, I'd trade my car in for a hybrid like a Prius or Honda Civic, but an efficient diesel would do. Unfortunately, as I'm the one who has the family car now, suitable (second-hand) replacements within budget, are rare.

3) Loft Insulation: Earlier in the year, only about a third of our loft was insulated, and even that was just 10cm (The recommended minimum is 25 to 30cm). That third is now up to 25cm but the rest remains completely uninsulated. The reason is that it's piled high with our belongings/junk. To get the job done we'd have to move the junk elsewhere (and we have no room for it - That's why it's in the loft!), take up the floor-boards, lay the insulation, raise the level of the floor (because the insulation would be too thick), then put back the floor-boards. Unsurprisingly, I've been putting the job off.

It will get done though, and hopefully before the Winter sets in. Watch this space!

How We've Reduced Our Carbon Footprint

The carbon footprint for my family is currently 9.62 tonnes, or 2.4 per head. That may sound a lot but the national average per head is 9.6 in the UK and about 15 to 20 in Australia and the U.S. (Check out your own country's average here).

It's thought that we need to get the average down to 2 tonnes per head worldwide to make it sustainable in the long term. That might seem like a ridiculously low figure but our footprint shows that it is possible without having to go back to the Stone Age or spending loads of money.

The main things that have contributed to low footprint are:

• We switched our electric bills to a green tariff taking 1.4t off our footprint.
• We work locally, so our annual mileage is about 5k for each of our 2 cars.
• We apply these travel rules when deciding on our holidays.
• We recycle/freecycle/compost as much as possible.
• We buy as much local and seasonal produce as possible.
• We don't go mad on getting the very latest gadgets.
• We eat mostly white meat and fish.

We have not bought solar panels, wind turbines, brand new low emission cars or any other expensive item. And we don't do anything that we'd consider to be 'putting ourselves out' like going completely veggie.

There are still things we can do to reduce our footprint like improving the insulation in our loft and replacing our cars with used ones that have lower emissions, so we may get very close to that 2 tonnes per head target within the next year.

Taking One For The Team

Note to Self: Another drawback to cycling to work is birds crapping on you as you pass below....

Rechargeable Wii Remotes

I can't stand devices that use up loads of batteries. It's not just the expense of all those Duracells, but the endless waste, whether they're recycled or not.

For that reason, we try to use rechargeables wherever possible. And that's why I decided to get some rechargeable Wii remotes to replace our normal one.

Bad idea. Rechargeables just don't seem to hold a charge for any appreciable period. My impression is that they're useless after just 2 weeks left lying about. I'm not sure if this can be extended by removing the battery pack from the Wii while it's not in use but if it does then that's just poor design. A rechargeable remote should not drain the batteries while it's not in use. Or am I being naiive?

Anyway, the end result is that we can't just fire up the Wii when we like because, more often than not, the remotes won't work. So much for spontaneity.

Frankly, these things are only workable if you use them every week. So I think we'll be returning to the normal remotes very soon.

Reducing CO2 Emissions on Holiday

I don't know about you but holidays always present me with a dilema where carbon emissions are concerned. These days it's fairly standard for people to look for ever more exotic places to go to each year. Partly for the thrill, partly so they can boast about it when they get back. Holidays in your home country are sooo last century!

But, when you consider that a long-haul return flight can add up to 20 tonnes to your annual carbon footprint, it makes you think.

So we've worked out a bunch of rules for our family holidays. Maybe you'll find them of some use yourself:

• Take the majority of holidays in the UK. Our country is beautiful and you can never run out of new places to visit. Over recent years we've done Devon, the Isle of Wight, Yorkshire, the west of Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. All of them were wonderful places to stay and we were supporting our own tourist industry.
• Something Different? Drive there. L iving in the south-east makes it easy to reach much of western Europe by car. We've visited France, Spain, and even Italy that way, making the journey part of the holiday with stop-overs in interesting places.
• Too far to drive? Try a train. We've not actually done this one yet but it is possible to get a lot further afield by train and hire a car at the other end. Here's one of several websites that help you sort these sort of trips out. One classic break by rail is a 'snow train' for ski holidays (See here for an example). The holiday starts the moment you get on the train!
• Must fly? Make it as short as possible and carbon offset the flight. We try to keep the flights to a minimum (3 in the last decade) and close at hand (none out of Europe). Yes, there's a whole exotic world out there beyond Europe but it's pretty cool on our continent too. So much history, so many sights, & so much natural beauty. And, compared to the price a flight, carbon offseting the trip is small potatoes.

Of Car Sharing and Folding Bikes

Well, I've been doing the car-sharing-to-work/cycle-home thing twice a week for about 5 weeks and it seems to be working quite well.

It's saving me money, cuts my carbon footprint, helps keep me fit, and means fewer visits to the petrol station.

Unfortunately, only a third of my route is bicycle lane, so I'm at the mercy of car drivers for the rest. Thankfully, most of that part is fairly quiet, with only 2 short busy sections. Strangely, the bike journey is only slightly slower than by car.

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For those who are interested in such things, my bike is a Raleigh Swift. I've no previous experience of folding bikes but I can say it's not the sort that's easy to carry about! It's heavy (16kg), takes up a surprising amount of the boot in a family car, and it doesn't even have a convenient hand-hold for lugging the folded version around with.

On the plus side, it's quick to fold and unfold, is quiet to pedal, has most of the features of a regular bike like mud-guards and a stand, and has a prop to keep the folded version upright.

There are lighter and more compact folding bikes out there, but they seem to be far more expensive: I've seen ones topping £1000. Mine was 'just' £160, so I'm happy with what I've got.