Today I decided to quantify my carbon tonnage. Yes, I know it was just last week that I was moaning about the oversimplification of the environmental crisis into Co2, but I figure that I might as well know what I’m talking about if I am going to rage against that particular machine. So, let’s think back to the beginning of 2009 when my husband and I committed to reducing our carbon footprint in an effort to live a low impact life. Now I want to see how well we – or more specifically, I – did before we set sail into 2010. To do this I used three online carbon calculators on the assumption that there would be a little variability but that I could get an average baseline carbon footprint. The results were more than just a little variable, here’s what I came up with... Carbon Calculator # 1: Act on Co2
I started with http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/actonco2/home.html , the UK government’s Act on CO2 web site, where I inputted a little information and was given the very modest score of 2.74 tonnes per annum. As I was under the impression that the average UK lifestyle had the output of about 11 tonnes per annum, this seemed too good to be true. I decided that rather than taking it as proof of my saintliness, my low score was probably down to the fact that this calculator only measures home heating, electrical appliances and personal transport and critically it misses out on water, waste, food and consumption. So this calculation only really accounts for around 40% of my carbon footprint. In a nutshell, this one is not the most accurate carbon counter there is but it is a helpful and easy to use site and it gives good tips on what to do to reduce your impact, just don’t be fooled that you are as good as it tells you you are.
Carbon Calculator # 2: Bioregional
I decided to find a more detailed calculator and googled “one planet living” to see if I could get a more comprehensive measurement. I was pointed to the One Planet Living microsite run by Bioregional http://calculator.bioregional.com/. This calculator took about 10 minutes to complete and looked at home energy usage, travel, household waste, food, water use, retail consumption, garden, wildlife habitat, health and wellbeing. It also includes some quite random questions like “Have you ever looked into the history of your local area?” (How exactly would that impact my carbon output???). After finishing the questionnaire on this site my carbon footprint shot up to 8.9 tonnes and I was told in no uncertain terms that if everyone in the world lived like me we would need two planets to support us, but I was able to take some solace in the fact that I am still below the UK average of three planets. This site gave me the most comprehensive analysis and clear tips for what I could do to further reduce my impact.
Carbon Calculator # 3: WWF
So then I thought I’d see what WWF had to say as they are the originators of the concept of one planet living. The WWF footprint calculator http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/ has a bold interface and is very easy to complete with quick-fire questions grouped into four categories: food, travel, home and stuff. You get through the questions in about 3 minutes, but some of them do skim the surface a bit (eg. no specificity on the type of loft insulation you have which does make a difference). After the quickfire questions the site then encourages users to join the WWF campaign to reduce Co2 and gives snappy tips for how to make changes. Shockingly, however, it calculated my carbon footprint at a massive 13.78 tonnes per annum and 2.66 planets, which just about bowled me over.
2009 Carbon Calculations
I was left wondering how these three sites could take in the same data and come up with such different answers. Because they varied so wildly, I decided the most reliable calculation was the Bioregional one as it used the most comprehensive data. So I have my baseline: 8.9 tonnes, but did I also find out if I reduced my carbon footprint at all in 2009? Well, yes, but I had to seek out other web sites to help me calculate that. Specifically I wanted to calculate the savings made as a result of two key changes we made last year – 1) giving up our car and 2) composting all our food waste. Giving up the car saved 1.9 tonnes per year (source: the carbon neutral company http://www.carbonneutral.com/) and by composting all our food, garden and cardboard waste, we saved emissions equivalent to 0.28 tonnes of carbon dioxide. (source: Centre for Alternative Technologies http://www.cat.org.uk/). That is a total saving of 2.18 tonnes – which roughly means we cut our carbon emissions by about a quarter last year. That is not perfect maths of course, but then again those carbon calculator web sites were not exactly demonstrating Carol Vordeman precision!
New year resolutions
So if we managed 25% last year, we can certainly cut our emissions by at least another 10% in 2010. I have signed us up to 10:10 http://www.1010uk.org/, alongside squillions of celebs and big companies, and I’ve got a few ideas about how we can reach that target. Firstly we need to tackle the house – it is too draughty and the loft insulation we have is too skimpy. With a baby in the house we keep the heating on more than we did before so we really need to replace three windows and increase our loft insulation to 400mm depth. I also plan to invest in an electricity meter and a chimney balloon for the unused chimney stack. However, the area that I’m not sure we can impact this year is air travel as we aim to go back to Canada in the summer, so I will have to look into the issue of “love miles” in more depth in a future blog.
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