What is a carbon footprint?
While most people will know what a carbon footprint is, there will still be people who are unsure or totally unaware of what a carbon footprint is. Your carbon footprint is a way that you can measure your own impact on the environment by taking into account factors such as what foods you eat, how you travel daily, your homes energy usage and a few more factors. You can work out your current carbon footprint online on one of the many carbon footprint calculators that are available online.
How to reduce your home's carbon footprint
If you are looking to reduce your homes carbon footprint then following this guide will give you 5 ways that you can begin to reduce your carbon footprint and reduce your personal impact on the environment.
Replace your old boiler
Replace your old boiler can make a big difference to your carbon footprint and can reduce the amount of energy that is being wasted by your home. If you have a boiler that is older than ten years then you could be wasting up to 30% of the energy that is being produced by your boiler, meaning that all that wasted energy is going into the atmosphere as CO2. When you compare this to a modern boiler you will only be wasting around 8% of this energy generated, which is a huge reduction in CO2 that is being generated and wasted.
Replacing your boiler can be expensive however so make sure that you choose the right kind of boiler for your home and choose a brand that is reliable such as Vaillant boilers, Worcester Bosch Boilers or Ideal boilers. You may also be able to claim help from your gov on buying your new boiler as they may have a grant in place to help homes upgrade to newer greener energy, so it’s worth checking if this is the case in your area before you buy a new boiler.
Drive less
While it seems like quite a common thing to say, driving less really does help reduce your carbon footprint. With the fossil fuels burned by cars, trains and planes being the major cause of greenhouse gasses, it is easy to see why driving less can really reduce your carbon footprint. A change that you can make to your daily driving habits is to take public transport or even cycle on your commute to work if it is possible for you. The same can be said for a trip to the shops, if you can walk to your local supermarket and back with your shopping then that’s another change you could make to reduce your time spent on the road.
If however, it’s not possible for you to take public transport or cycle to and from work, there are ways that you can reduce your emissions while still driving and that’s by driving efficiently and making sure not to use the accelerator and brake too much.
Meals
When it comes to something as simple as meals there are even some changes that you can make to what meals you eat to reduce your carbon footprint. Starting with something as simple as cutting down the amount of meat you are eating and eating more regular plant-based meals is a start to reducing your carbon footprint every day. This is down to how much carbon dioxide is produced by the farming of livestock. As well as eating more plant-based meals making sure you throw less away also helps reduce your footprint, by freezing extra portions or using them up the next day you’re wasting less food and reducing that carbon footprint.
Laundry
In terms of your laundry, there are a couple of things that you can do when it comes to reducing your carbon footprint. The first best thing that you can do is to wash your clothes using cold water and a cold-water washing detergent, this way you could be saving a huge amount of co2 a year. Another way to make a change is when it comes time to replace your old washing machine, make sure when you choose a new one you pick a washing and drier that is energy efficient, this way there will be less carbon dioxide produced for each washing load you put through it.
Recycling
Finally, recycling. Making sure that you’re recycling all of your old cans, bottles and cardboard really does reduce your carbon footprint as it means that new items like cans and bottles can be made from your old ones, which requires less energy than making these items from scratch with new materials.
Following these steps will be a great start to reducing your carbon footprint and will give you some great ideas of what else you could be changing to further reduce it!
