4.2 Actions for lighter living
In this section, you will learn about those actions or changes which are likely to have a big effect on your footprint and those with only a small effect. You will also consider some of the complexities in calculating these effects. This should help prepare you for Activity 11 at the end of this section.
Tables 4a–d provide examples of how different actions affect your carbon footprint and so what you could do to reduce it. But be aware that the effects of these actions depend on the assumptions and data sources used. For example, the CO2 savings from filling cavity walls with insulation depend on: the house type and size (detached, terraced, etc.); its heating system (gas, electric, etc.); and how the house is occupied. You should therefore regard the information in Tables 4a–d as ‘ballpark’ figures rather than exact numbers. It also means that effects of changes you might make in the calculator may not exactly match those in the tables.
You can view Tables 4a–d in their full size by clicking on ‘View larger image’ beneath each table.
Activity 7 Lighter carbon living
Considering Table 4a–d, what actions do you think are most likely to substantially reduce your carbon footprint? And which seem to make only a relatively small difference?
The actions fall into two broad groups – technical and behavioural (sometimes referred to as lifestyle). For example, installing energy-saving lamps in your home is a ‘technical’ action, while switching lights off is a ‘behavioural’ action. For example, installing energy-saving lights in your home is a ‘technical’ action, while switching lights off is a ‘behavioural’ action. Sort your list of actions into technical (T) and behavioural (B) actions.
Discussion
The following actions in Table 4a–d are more likely than others to significantly reduce your carbon footprint. In approximate rank order:
- replace gas or oil central heating with an air source or ground source heat pump (T)
- reduce long journeys by petrol or diesel car as much as possible, especially one-person regular journeys such as commuting (B)
- avoid air travel (especially long- and medium-haul flights) as much as possible; replace domestic and short-haul flights with train or coach travel (B)
- share car journeys with one, two or more passengers (B)
- replace a petrol or diesel car with a plug-in hybrid or battery electric car (T)
- make medium to long journeys by train or coach rather than by petrol or diesel car (B)
- install a solar photovoltaic (PV) system (T)
- install cavity or solid wall insulation (T)
- install or top up loft insulation (T)
- avoid beef and/or lamb consumption (B)
- keep and maintain durable consumer goods such as cars and computers for longer (B)
- replace an old, inefficient gas boiler with an efficient condensing one (but preferable to replace with a heat pump) (T)
- avoid food waste and recycle household waste as much as possible (B)
- line-dry washing instead of using a tumble drier (B).
The following actions are likely to have only a relatively minor effect on your carbon footprint, but may address other important impacts:
- not buying one new pair of shoes or trousers (B)
- avoiding bottled water and disposable plastic carrier bags (B).
These are some of the effective actions that you can take. Remember from Section 2 that household income and size also have a very big effect on personal carbon footprints. There may be little you can, or want to, do about your income, but you may have some control over how you spend it; for example, you could spend spare income on insulating your home, on holiday flights, or on ‘offsetting’ your emissions (see Section 5). The number of people in your household may also not be something you can change, but if you have spare room it is usually carbon efficient for it to have an occupant.
Although having a higher occupancy rate in a house will reduce each occupants footprint, increasing the population of the world, without any other changes, clearly increases total carbon emissions.