Individual actions to reduce your carbon footprint

ENERGY

TRAVEL

FOOD/DRINK

INDIRECT FOOTPRINT

POLITICAL INFLUENCING

Sources / numbers

HBAB = How Bad Are Bananas?, Mike Berners Lee, 2010

All numbers are CO2 equivalent. They are very imprecise but a good indicator of relative impact

Have to take into account to avoid only looking at "carbon toeprint" (HBAB, 2)

UK indivudual. 10,000kg direct; 15,000kg including imports, international travel, shipping (HBAB, 141)

DRIVING

FLYING

TRAIN

CYCLING

Figures include 1.9x multiplier effect for high altitude emissions.
Could be as high as 4x (HBAB, 3)

TECHNOLOGY

Average email has 1/60th footprint of a letter. But rebound effect, do we now send 60x more emails? (HBAB, 16)

Average 135kg a year for incoming emails (HBAB, 15)

20m tonnes globally a year from spam, largely due to electricity cost of looking/deleting them (HBAB, 16)

FRUIT / VEG

PLASTIC

50-200g per mile. Usually 10x more efficient than the most efficient car (HBAB, 24)

But two people cycling along using calories from cheeseburgers is equivalent to the same two people sharing a ride in an efficient car (HBAB, 23)

MEAT / DAIRY

Keep an eye on the scale. 1000g =1kg. 1000kg = 1 tonne. 1,000,000g = 1 tonne

ACTION: Avoid anything grown in hothouses and/or flown to the supermarket. Eat what is in season in the UK. Could reduce food footprint by up to 10% (HBAB, 182)

Bananas are great (480g per kilo). Transported on boats. Keep well. Own packaging! (HBAB, 27)

Could cause 15kg a year on standby (HBAB, 32)

NAPPIES (550kg for a child for 2.5 years). For emissions, not clear-cut that reusable are better. Depends on using for multiple children and/or washing / drying approach (HBAB, 38)

Out of season strawberries (up to 7.2kg per kilo) have 10x higher footprint than local, in season (HBAB, 39)

OTHER

Bottled water, 160g on average. 1000x more than tap water (HBAB, 43)

WASTE / RECYCLING

NO-BRAINER: Junk mail catalogue, 1600g (HBAB, 44)

NO-BRAINER: Throwing Sunday paper away (4kg) rather than recycling doubles its footprint (HBAB, 48)

SHOWER / BATH

NO-BRAINER - aerated shower head reduces hot water needed with minimal impact on experience (HBAB,, 52)

100% RENEWABLE SUPPLIERS

Some debate about how much switching leads to additional green energy supply in UK system vs. selling ROCs to other providers who then don't need to build their own. Also need to consider the marginal impact of using more energy, which is still provided by gas in the UK. (HBAB, 57-59)

Recycling aluminium, plastics and textiles particularly important from footprint perspective (HBAB, 61-63)

APPLIANCES

Dishwashers are good! 770g at 55-degrees vs. as much as 8kg by hand if hot tap is running. (HBAB, 63)

Recycled toilet roll (450g), virgin toilet roll (730g) (HBAB, 64)

UK average 710g per mile. Up to 3x more on congested road. (HBAB, 65, 107)

Small cars up to 50% more efficient

60mph rather than 70mph saves c10%

Windows, air con, tire pressures all worth c1-2%

Single red rose from Netherlands hot house, 2.1kg (HBAB, 68)

Pint of milk, 723g (HBAB, 71)

Loaf of bread, 1kg. Fine but so much is wasted (HBAB, 77)

1kg plastic, 1.7kg footprint recycled, 3.5kg not recycled (HBAB, 80)

Reusable plastic bags must by used at least 5 times to have a lower footprint than disposable (HBAB, 19)

When someone in the developed world walks home from the shops with a disposable plastic bag full of food, the bag is typically responsible for 1/1000th of the footprint of the food it contains. (HBAB, 18)

250g Asparagus. 125g if local. Up to 3.5kg for airfreight from Peru.

Shipping is 100x more efficient than air/road per food mile (HBAB, 83)

Low-heat wash cycles and avoid driers. 30-degree wash, line dried = 0.6kg. 60-degree wash then dried in combined dryer = 3.5kg. (HBAB, 84)

4oz cheeseburger, 2.5kg (HBAB, 86)

N.B. 25% emissions occur before the fuel pump (HBAB, 87)

1 kilo rice has 4kg footprint. That's more than burning a litre of diesel (HBAB, 89)

Other things that have a big footprint

Desalination of a m3 water, 5-23kg (HBAB, 91)

CLOTHING

Typically about 2% total footprint for a UK individual (HBAB, 94)

Cotton jeans (6kg) vs nylon trousers (3kg), excluding washing (HBAB, 94)

Box of eggs, 1.8kg (HBAB, 96)

A kilo of tomatoes. 0.4kg in season. 9.1kg average. Up to to 50kg for specialist grown in UK hothouse. (HBAB, 97)

LIGHT BULBS

Light on for a whole year. Low-energy, 90kg. Old incandescent bulb 500kg. (HBAB,100)

Leather shoes, 15kg. Synthetic shoes, 8kg. (HBAB, 105)

250g hard cheese, 3kg (HBAB, 106)

London to Glasgow return. Coach, 66kg. Train, 120kg. Small car, 330kg. Plane, 500kg. Large four wheel drive, 1100kg. (HBAB, 117)

Christmas! 280-1500kg per adult (HBAB, 120)

INSULATION

NO-BRAINER: loft insulation (HBAB, 121)

COMPUTER

Before buying, 200-800kg. Usage 60-200g an hour. (HBAB, 124)

Your bank! Mortgages allow banks to exist. £100,000 mortgage at 5%, 800kg. (HBAB, 127)

A heart-bypass, 1,100kg (HBAB, 131)

Flying from London to Hong Kong return. Economy class, 3,000-5,000kg. First class, 13,500kg. (HBAB, 135)

Economy flight equivalent to 340,000 disposable plastic bags, You would have to go to the supermarket for 10 years and get 93 bags each time to equal this.

Buying a new car. Small, 6,000kg. Medium, 17,000kg. Large, 35,000kg. (HBAB, 143)

Building a new 2-up, 2-down house, 80,000kg. (HBAB, 149)

Average child living to 79 with UK lifestyle, adjusted to meet 2050 climate targets, 373,000kg. (HBAB, 151)

A hectare, 100m x 100m of deforestation, 500,000kg. (HBAB, 154)

ACTION: Reduce meat/dairy consumption. Could reduce food footprint by c25% (HBAB, 182)

ACTION: Reduce food waste. Could reduce food footprint by c25% (HBAB, 182)

Buy misshapen products to encourage supply chain not to throw it away (HBAB, 27)

Wynes/Nicholas = "The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions", Seth Wynes and Kimberley A Nicholas, [2017] (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541/meta;jsessionid=27A3DB484AD779A48F920DD37B8268AC.ip-10-40-2-120)

58.6T per year (Wynes / Nicholas) Includes grandchildren. A US family who chose to have one less child would provide the same level of emissions reducations as 684 teenagers who chose to adopt comprehensive recycling for the rest of their lives.

1.6T per trans-Atlantic flight (Wynes / Nicholas)

Plant-based diet, 800kg per year (Wynes / Nicholas)

Living car free, save c1.5T per year (Wynes / Nicholas)

Electric cars still emit 1.15T per year on average (Wynes / Nicholas)

Buying green energy 1-2.5T per year in Can, Aus, US. Some debate about UK impact. (Wynes / Nicholas)

1010 food tips (https://1010uk.org/carbon-crush-content/eating)

1010 energy tips (https://1010uk.org/carbon-crush-content/energy-supply)

1010 Transport tips (https://1010uk.org/carbon-crush-content/transport)

1010 knowledge sharing tips (https://1010uk.org/carbon-crush-content/knowledge)

1010 Lighting tips (https://1010uk.org/carbon-crush-content/lighting)

1010 Heating tips (https://1010uk.org/carbon-crush-content/heating)

M Berners Lee article on most impactful diet changes (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513009701)

Renewable switching site (https://bigcleanswitch.org/about/)

Estimates for cost/emissions from different household appliances (https://www.carbonfootprint.com/energyconsumption.html)

Article on double-counting (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114009290)

EST on why this is no substitute for efficiency (http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/home-energy-efficiency/switching-utilities/buying-green-electricity)

lamb is very bad (worse than beef), 17kg per kilo. (HBAB, 111)