Eating, travelling, and heating your home – all of these contribute to your carbon footprint. Stay with us to learn how you can make small changes that will positively impact your carbon emissio
Everything you do, from buying clothes and driving your car to cooking dinner and heating your home, contributes to the emission of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere.
You’ll remember from your school days that not all CO2 is bad. It’s part of the circle of life: animals release CO2 when they breathe out, and nature maintains a balance by absorbing and removing it through plants and the oceans.
The issue comes with the CO2 created by human activity. Over the years, our extracting, refining, transporting, and burning fossil fuels have generated way too much for the ecosystem to cope with, causing damage to our environment.
Why is carbon dioxide harmful?
Carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) absorb radiation, stopping heat from escaping from our atmosphere. As the amount of atmospheric CO2 grows, it collects and stores heat. The result is changing weather patterns and increasing global temperatures.
Although many other gases also trap heat (e.g., methane and water vapour), carbon dioxide puts us at the most significant risk of irreversible changes if it continues to accumulate in the atmosphere.
If we allow the volumes of CO2 to continue, the extreme weather that we’ve all been experiencing recently will continue and worsen. However, we can all do our part when it comes to fighting global warming by making a few climate-friendly choices.
5 ways you can cut your carbon emissions
If you understand how big your carbon footprint is, you can find ways to reduce it. There are several free online carbon calculators you can use.
Small changes can make big differences, for example, when it comes to transportation, food, clothing, waste, etc. Here are some tips:
Food
- Buy local, seasonal products
- Reduce your meat consumption
- Choose fish from sustainable fishing sources
- Opt for reusable shopping bags and avoid products with excess plastic packaging
- Only buy what you need to reduce waste
Clothing
- Look after your clothes and make them last longer
- Swap, borrow, rent, or buy second-hand
- Look for responsible clothing made from recycled materials or that has an eco-label
- Donate unwanted items to charity
Transport
- Cycle, walk or use public transport where possible
- Car-share
- Take the train more
- Travel less and holiday closer to home
- Reduce business travel by opting for video conferencing
Energy and waste
- Turn your heating down by one degree
- Take short showers rather than baths
- Turn off the water while you brush your teeth
- Unplug electronic equipment, and don’t leave your phone on charge if your battery is full
- Use ‘A rated’ energy efficient products
- Limit and recycle your waste
- Reuse items where necessary
Did you know that the way you decide to spend, save, and invest your money can also reduce your carbon footprint?
Take a good look at where you bank by checking out bank.green. This will help you identify how sustainable your current provider is. You can change to a more ethical bank if you don’t like what you see.
Start cutting today
As you’ve seen, reducing your carbon footprint isn’t too difficult – it just takes a bit of thought.
Look and see what you can do, and we can make a positive change together.
