Carbon Footprint

28 Feb, 2011 | Energy | by David Hunter

We hear the buzz words Carbon or CO2 Footprint but what do they mean?

It is the measure of what effect all of our activities have on the environment from driving your car to drop the kids off at school, to heating your home in winter. Each of these activities has an effect on the amount of green house gases produced as we burn fossil fuels for transport, heating and electricity.

When we are talking about carbon footprints and carbon emissions we usually mean the amount of carbon dioxide that is produced. Carbon dioxide is a green house gas meaning that it traps heat in the earth’s atmosphere. This leads to global warming which is also known as climate change. There are other gases that contribute to global warming but as individuals the most important by far is carbon dioxide and that’s why we measure our carbon footprint in tonnes of CO2.

In 2007 the UK produced 543 Million tonnes of CO2 which is around 9 tonnes of C02 for every man woman and child in the country. Although the majority of these emissions are caused by business and industry, individuals account for over 40% of the C02 we produce.

Your carbon footprint mostly depends on how you heat and insulate your home, the appliances that you use every day from TVs and cookers to the computer you are sitting at right now, the type of transport that you use daily to get to work or to the shops and how often you fly. You can work out your carbon foot print by going to the calculator that you can find on www.carbontrust.co.uk

All of us have a part to play in reducing our carbon footprint. You can insulate your home and switch off all your appliances and electronics at the wall instead of leaving them on standby. You can go one step further by buying more energy efficient appliances when it is time to change them. Instead of using the car for every journey you can walk, cycle or use public transport and of course you holiday a little closer to home which will cut down on the C02 emissions produced by flights.

Another simple way is to continue using this website as we can recommend innovative ways to make your life cleaner, greener and kinder to the environment.