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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. Its just lots of simple things, added together.
So lets 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 whats 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
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