To round up our carbon and climate change theme, let’s go back to the basics and remind ourselves of the essentials! Everything has a carbon footprint. If it exists, it’s having an impact on the Earth. We are increasingly becoming aware of the multitude of ways that we can alter this impact to be more positive than detrimental. For an everyday person this is not about inventing zero carbon solutions, it’s about reducing your footprint where you can, when you can. So, let’s go!
Calculating Your Footprint
The WWF carbon footprint calculator was created with the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York, and the University of Leeds. The calculator considered 4 sets of questions, including:- Food
- Home
- Travel
- Stuff
There may be areas where you are massively contributing to your carbon footprint that aren’t covered within these questions. Maybe there are areas where you’re totally bossing it that equally aren’t assessed here! This tool is generated to be accessible to a wide audience, so just remember that it’s an overview of your impact.
Understanding Your Footprint
Your carbon footprint is a way of understanding your carbon emissions compared to other people nationally and globally. By ‘carbon emissions’ we mean all greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, etc. Human activity has caused a major increase in levels of these gases, and we have entered the so-called Anthropocene.
Your result will be presented as a carbon dioxide equivalent (i.e. results of all the different greenhouse gases but in one figure). The percentage score is on a scale where 100% is the average required for each UK citizen to achieve a zero footprint in 2045. So if your result is greater than 100%, you could be doing more to help achieve that target. Below 100% and give yourself a pat on the back, keep up the good work and keep on decarbonising your life!
Regardless of your score, it’s important to remember to keep going. Emissions need to be cut, both now and in the future, to limit global warming.
Reducing Your Footprint
The UK has ambitious goals to reduce climate change following the Climate Change Act of 2008. The target is to reduce the country’s emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. In 2019 the target was upgraded to achieve at least net-zero by 2050. The timeline of targets suggest percentage goals to monitor progress along the way. For more information, see here.
Top 5 things you can do to reduce your footprint:
- Eat less meat! You don’t need it in every meal and vegetarianism/veganism isn’t for everyone but simply eat less of it.
- Nevermind Reduce Reuse Recycle, adopt the 7Rs into your life! Rethink. Refuse. Reduce. Reuse. Repair. Re-gift. Recover. Recycle. Mindset is everything!Re-think your transport. Cycling everywhere and never flying is impractical for most people. Let's be real. So stay in your own lane and consider what works for you - is walking or cycling accessible to you? Maybe not, but what about the bus or car sharing? Perhaps you need a plane to get across the ocean but what about once you get there? Utilise the tram service, etc.
- Clean energy. You can turn the lights off all you like but in the end you will still need to use electricity and heating in your household - we live in the UK! But what about clean energy? To find out if you can switch to affordable and clean energy see The Big Clean Switch (if you’re a student fill it in and show it to your landlord… I’m sure they will be happy to save money)
- Share your progress. Do not underestimate the levels of empowerment you will feel for sharing your success stories, trials and triumphs with friends and the wider community. You will get encouragement from others as well as inspire those around you to get on board too!
The more we learn, the more we realise our power to change the future of the Earth - but that’s a lot of responsibility to burden one set of shoulders. Remember - you can only do your best. Sometimes that will look pretty impressive, and other times it will just be something small and meaningful to you. All our blog posts aim to empower our community and share ideas - remember to take time for yourselves and applaud every success, big or small!
Author: Holly
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