Isramart : 10 Ways to Start Going Carbon Neutral

Isramart news:
Author Mark Brassington first started looking at ways of cutting his carbon emissions in 2003, now he reveals how you can go carbon neutral, or at least cut your personal emissions and your fuel bills.

Mark explains ten simple ways to cut fuel bills and emissions.

When you go from thinking about going carbon neutral, to actually attempting it, things can seem quite confusing at first. There seem to be hundreds of sources with suggestions and tips, but what are the actual steps we need to make? Where do we start when we want to reduce our carbon footprint?

As a friend of mine used to say, ‘Nothing in the world is complicated. It’s just lots of simple things, added together.’

So let’s break them down.

The Six Basic Areas

The areas where we use fossil fuels are:

1. Heating
2. Electricity
3. Transport
4. Food
5. Water (and sewage)
6. Shopping

Each of these areas involves us using fossil fuels, either ourselves, such as switching on the gas heater, or through a company, such as switching on the lights. All of these areas contribute to our carbon emissions, so to start reducing our emissions, we need to tackle each of these six areas.

Inputs and Outputs

To break these areas down even further, they are each made up of inputs and outputs.

Our inputs are what we use up, such as gas into the heater, or electricity into the lights. Our outputs are what’s left over, and what gets wasted. This might be heat that’s lost through poor insulation, or electricity that’s wasted through using high energy bulbs.

So to tackle our emissions in any one of the six areas, either:

1. Reduce your outputs, or dispose of them more sustainably.
2. Convert your inputs into a sustainable alternative.

Start with Outputs

An example of reducing our output of heat might be to get cavity wall insulation for the home. To reduce our output of food, we could reuse food scraps or compost them instead of sending them to landfill. Tackling outputs is the first step towards going carbon neutral.

Outputs usually involve little cost, and often save money.

If you insulate your home, then your fuel bill will go down. If you use low-energy bulbs, then your electricity bill will go down.

These can be very simple changes – often requiring just a change in habit, such as recycling packaging instead of adding to the landfill.

Tackle just one area

Our whole society is based around fossil fuels.

We even eat fossil fuels, because food is grown using artificial fertilisers and made using natural gas. Did you know it takes around six calories of fossil fuels, to make just one calorie of food?

With such a staggering dependency built in to our lives, it can be a weighty task to let go.

A good first step is to pick just one area, and tackle the output. A good one to start with might be composting. You will be amazed at how quickly your compost bin fills up. We have six! If you tackle just one area and tick it off, you have completed one of the steps towards going carbon neutral.

When you tackle just one output, you get a sense of achievement which can feel pretty good and proves it can be done. Allow this change in your life to bed in. Then after a few weeks, go back and pick another.

If you want to go carbon neutral, you can. It’s that simple.

The Inputs

The inputs of the six areas, can be more difficult to deal with, and can sometimes be quite expensive. This is why they should be tackled after the outputs. It is a lot easier to insulate your home, than it is to fit a wood-burning stove, and keep it fuelled all winter!

But don’t be put off; these steps can still be taken. We can get the bus or walk where possible instead of driving. This is a simple example of switching our input of transport to a more sustainable alternative.

So here’s 10 Ways…

To get you started, here are ten ways to start going carbon neutral, so you can easily reduce your footprint by ten per cent. Good luck!

1. Don’t fly on holiday. Some sources claim that a single long-haul flight can account for 50 per cent of your carbon footprint.
It is as much carbon as in everything else in your life put together!

2. Compost your food waste. This automatically ticks food outputs!

3. Insulate your home. If you haven’t already done this, do it now.

Apart from the environment, you are burning money! Most local councils will do this for you cheaply, or even for free!

4. Switch to green electricity. Pick up the phone and call Good Energy, Green Energy or Ecotricity. They are very competitively priced, despite what you may think.

5. Use public transport, a bike, or your feet wherever possible.

6. If you do need a car, choose an efficient one, and buy second-hand.

7. Grow your own food, even if it’s only herbs in a window box.

8. When you do buy food, buy organic and buy local. Farm shop first, then British, then European. Box schemes are a great alternative.

9. Reduce your loo flush. In many homes, it can often be the biggest hog. You can use a small plastic bottle filled with water, or some water companies will send you a water saver for free. Pick up the phone!

10. Buy second-hand and buy local. Look in the paper and on the internet. Freecycle is a resource where you can exchange second-hand items for free. Recycle everything!

Mark Brassington is the author of How to go Carbon Neutral . Available at all good bookstores priced at £8.99, published by How To Books Ltd

Chapter 1 is available to download free on Mark’s website http://www.HowToGoCarbonNeutral.com/