Our individual
actions could affect the future of our planet for everyone. Knowing how to
reduce your carbon footprint can help slow climate change. While the threat to
our environment may seem huge, there are relatively small everyday changes we
can make which will contribute to tackling the problem. If everyone made these
changes then we could help limit the damage to our planet. In this article, we
explain how to
reduce your carbon footprint at home and at work.
What is your carbon footprint?
Your carbon footprint is
the total amount of greenhouse gases that your everyday actions produce, which
contributes to global warming. Melting ice caps, rising sea levels, heatwaves,
droughts, wildfires and extreme storms are all signs that the Earth’s climate
is changing.
Why is it important to reduce your carbon
footprint?
Reducing our carbon footprint is one way we can all help tackle climate
change. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil produces carbon
dioxide, or CO2. These CO2 emissions trap heat in our atmosphere which then warms
up our whole planet, hence the term greenhouse gas.
If you want to know how to reduce carbon footprint by lowering
your impact on the environment, read on…
How to reduce your carbon footprint at home
The heating, lighting and appliances in our homes produce around 22%
of the UK’s carbon emissions. Making the following simple changes at home will
have a positive impact on the environment for everyone. See how you can help
(and save a pretty penny).
1. Insulate your hot water tank
This will reduce the amount of heat it loses and make it more
efficient and cheaper to run. A relatively cheap hot water cylinder jacket
should be super simple to fit.
2. Insulate your hot water pipes
Your water will stay hotter for longer if you fit foam tubing around
the pipes between your boiler and your hot water tank. This will reduce energy
use and lower your
carbon emissions.
3. Insulate your radiators
Affordable radiator reflector panels fit behind your radiators and
reduce your energy consumption by reflecting heat back into the room instead of
out through the external wall.
4. Insulate your loft
A quarter of the heat lost in an uninsulated home is lost through the
roof. Decent loft insulation will mean big savings on your energy bills and a reduced carbon footprint
5. Insulate your walls
A third of the heat lost in an uninsulated home is lost through the
walls. After the 1920s, most homes were built with cavity walls which can
easily be insulated. Older homes may have solid walls which could mean more
tricky and expensive insulation on the inside or outside of your house.
6. Insulate your floors
Wooden floorboards can be insulated from
underneath, and concrete floors, if they haven’t been insulated when laid, can
be insulated over the top.
7. Draught-proof your house
Block gaps around your windows, doors and chimney that let warm air
out and cold air in. Try sticky draught-proofing strips on door and window
openings and silicone sealant around door and window edges. Brushes or flaps
can be fitted to keyholes, letterboxes and gaps along the bottom of doors.
Draught excluders can be fitted inside open chimneys when you’re not using your
fire, and ensure you invest in a professionally-fitted chimney cap up top.
Extractor fans, trickle vents, air bricks and wall vents can all keep your home
well ventilated after you've sorted any pesky draughts.
Also interested in saving water (which also helps the planet)? Read
our top
30 tips to save water at home.
8. Use a room thermostat and programmer
Central heating thermostats and timers regulate the amount of heat you
generate by ensuring that you keep your house at a nice cosy temperature at the
times you need it without unnecessarily overheating it. Help protect the
environment a bit more by reducing
your carbon footprint while saving a bit of extra money by turning the
temperature down a notch.
9. Fit thermostatic radiator valves
TRVs will sense when a room is hotter or colder than the setting
they’re on and adjust the flow of hot water accordingly, meaning you won’t be
demanding as much heat when you don’t need it.
10. Replace your old boiler
When the time comes, upgrade your heating system where you can to reduce your carbon
footprint at home. Air or ground source heat pumps are a great way to
reduce your environmental impact by not burning fossil fuels and using
low-carbon electricity. If you need to stick to gas or oil boilers for now,
ensure you go for energy efficient condensing models.
11. Use energy efficient appliances
Energy labels on appliances either use the A to
G scale (with A being the most efficient) or the A+++ to G scale (with A+++
being the most efficient). The bigger the appliance, the more energy it will
use, so be sure to compare energy ratings on different models of the same size
to find the most efficient one. This is especially important for fridges and
freezers as these are left on 24 hours a day.
12. Avoid leaving appliances on standby
Even when on standby, your appliance or device will still use
electricity. If anything’s not in use, turn it off to help reduce carbon your emissions.
13. Hang out your washing
Cut down your reliance on energy guzzling tumble driers by pegging
your washing out when the weather’s ok.
14. Take shorter showers
Save energy, money and water by sticking a 4-minute shower timer to
your wall.
15. Use low-energy light bulbs
Switch to energy-saving LED bulbs that use less leccy.
16. Don’t fill the kettle
To reduce
your carbon footprint, only use the water you need when boiling your
kettle. Even better, switch to a home water system which, as well as purifying
your tap water, dispenses instant hot water when you need it and boosts it to
boiling when you want a cuppa. In tests, the Virgin Pure Home Water System used
less electricity than a kettle.
Find out how
much time, energy and water you’re wasting when boiling your kettle by reading
our article, next.
How to reduce your carbon footprint at work
So,
you now know how to
reduce your carbon footprint at home, but how can you carry on this
practice to reduce
carbon footprint at work? Don’t worry, we’ve taken out all of the
thinking for you by listing some ways below. Take a look.
1. Use public transport
Less cars on the road means less fuel burned, so travelling in numbers
is always a good idea.
2. Car share
If public transport isn’t going to cut it, then check if any
colleagues live nearby or en route to work so you can hop in one car and take
turns to commute together.
3. Walk, run or cycle
Best of all - avoid burning fuel completely and just use your own body
fuel to get to work! Doing this every single day might be a feat too far, so
maybe try it just two or three times a week to reduce carbon footprint on your way to work.
4. Cut down on business flights
The age of hopping on a short or non-essential flight without a
conscience may have gone so try the train for domestic routes. Try to ensure
that overseas flights are essential and not just nice-to-have jollies.
5. Online meetings
Web conferencing has finally become a workplace habit. Saves time,
fuss and travel. Remember to Zoom if you can.
6. Work from home
As long as it’s okay with the boss and you actually get some work
done, occasionally working from home can save on time and energy.
7. Switch the lights off
If your workplace doesn’t have those clever
sensor lights that switch off in an empty room, remember to flick that switch
as you leave. Every little helps to reduce carbon emissions at work.
8. Switch your computer off
An empty workplace can still hum overnight with all manner of things
left on standby and slowly sucking up electricity. Think of the number of
computers in one huge office all quietly using energy when they don’t need to…
Turning your computer off is one of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint at the office.
9. Use a laptop
Laptops use far less energy than desktop computers, and you can carry
them wherever you go making work life that much more flexible and
eco-friendlier.
10. Go paperless
Surely, we don’t need rows and rows of filing cabinets stuffed with
paper copies of things no-one reads? Do we really need to print everything off?
Another straightforward way businesses can reduce their carbon footprint is to go
paperless. Just make sure your workplace has a good data back-up system.
11. No more single-use cups and bottles
Use your own reusable coffee cup on the way to work in the morning and
keep your reusable water bottle handy. We need to cut down on the amount of
paper, card and plastic that has to go through a needless, energy-consuming
production, waste or recycling process.
12. Install a water cooler
Dispense with the need for everyone to buy
bottled water while at work and dispense pure, filtered water on the premises
instead. The Virgin Pure
water system for Work does away with those huge plastic bottles that
some dispensers use and simply puts tap water through a thorough filtration
process and dispenses it nice and chilled or beautifully boiling - so you can
bin the kettle at work as well!
How does reducing my carbon
footprint help me?
Reducing
your carbon footprint ensures you are
contributing towards the solution of the climate change problem. Not only will
you be doing your bit towards a more positive future for the planet and
everyone and everything living on it, you’ll also find that many of the measures
you can take also mean a reduction in your day-to-day energy costs. Using less
energy means lower energy bills. The more widespread zero carbon solutions
become, the cheaper they will get. The more our electricity supply comes from
renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydro and tidal, the more affordable it
becomes. A zero-carbon future starts at home with all of us.
We’ve looked at how to reduce our carbon footprint at home and at work. The
fight against climate change involves us all as individuals. Even though
sometimes it might seem that using a low energy lightbulb or switching our TV
off at the mains at night won’t make that much of a difference, if everyone
around the whole world did the same, we would really start to address the
climate emergency we’re all facing. So why not start by ditching your old
kettle and switching to a work and/or home
water system?You’ll be using less energy and less water over the
course of the year and doing one small thing for the good of the planet and
your purse.
If you’ve enjoyed our article on reducing carbon
footprint, you’ll love our article on busting
myths about water. Check it out, next!
