What is a Carbon Footprint?
Do you have a carbon footprint? Yes!
Your carbon footprint is determined by what you do, what you buy, what you eat, in short it is your lifestyle.
For a much more detailed and scientific answer, see this article about carbon footprints from Grist.
There is a lot more to it than you imagine. The article linked above gives the following description:
“…say we’re measuring the carbon impact of a pencil — you might measure CO2 emitted by the timber operation that felled and processed the wood for the pencil, the machinery that mined graphite, the trucks that brought those raw materials to the pencil factory, the pencil factory itself, the generators powering the pencil factory, and finally, by the truck that shipped the pencil to the Staples or wherever.”
That is a lot to take in to consideration!
The calculations take into account the things that make the most CO2 – your home, transport, diet and buying.
Your carbon footprint might be higher than you think. Try this online calculator from WWF
We thought we did quite well in being eco-friendly, but our footprint works out at 111% so definitely something to work on this year!
What can I do?
There are a lot of things that you can do to improve your carbon footprint – so many that we’re not going to list them all here! There are a few tips below:
- You can travel by public transport
- Fly less (or not at all)
- Switch energy suppliers to use renewable sources
- Buy local
- Reduce meat and dairy in your diet
- Repair and reuse things before purchasing new
Try the calculator here as well, this lists tips at the end of how you can help reduce your impact:
https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculator
Let us know how you get on! Make a note of your starting footprint and then again when you’ve made some changes and see what the difference is.