Live a better life

Finally a good policy from the government

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:16:00 +0000

Gosh it's been a while. Sorry. I'm studying for an OU course about International Development and I'm having to prioritise my spare time on that.

Anyway, I have decided to forgive the government for the increases on booze in the recent budget (14p on a bottle of wine!), in the light of the threatened plastic bag tax. Supermarkets have a year to introduce their own charges on "single use" carrier bags, and the bag tax will come in if this fails to cut consumption. Unusually, proceeds from the bag tax will go to environmental charities rather than just getting swallowed into the pot.

Although M&S have recently announced a 5p charge on plastic bags as part of their "Plan A", other supermarkets and high street stores have been slow to follow suit - indeed Tescos look like they are actively dragging their feet (their bags may be biodegradeable, but this is only part of the problem). So this move from the govenment is welcome.

In other ways, however, many envirnomental commentators have slated the budget as not going far enough. It is a little ridiculous that our plastic bag tax comes after China banned free bags, and 6 whole years after Ireland introduced a highly effective tax, to name a few. So come on, let's get a bit ahead of the programme....

This year's carbon footprint calculation

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:47:00 +0000

So, has a year of trying to live a better life made a difference?

Yes!

In all, my carbon footprint is a whopping 64% lower than last year at 6.9 tonnes, (or 15.9 tonnes without adjustment for flight offsetting and switching to green electricity)

The main positive changes are:

Lower secondary footprint (-24%) due to lifestyle changes (less red meat, more recycling)
Lower gas bill (-53%) even though we live in a bigger house - the boiler is quite new, and this seems to have made a huge difference. We have also turned down the thermostat, and turned off radiators in rooms we don't use.
Less driving - 4,000 fewer miles, due to (a) moving so we don't have to drive so far to see people, and (b) our low-carbon holiday

... but this was more than made up for by 3,000 kms in a Toyata Hiace around New Zealand :(

Offsetting all flights
Moving to a green energy provider

On the downside, our trip to NZ made my personal flight contribution look pretty bad. Combined with two business trips to the US, this means that flights made up 54% of my footprint (before offsetting). This seems to be the main problem: how to reduce the impact from flying, without compromising on the need to see family and friends, and to fulfill the requirements of my job?

I used the Carbon Footprint site again, which now proudly claims to be the "webs leading carbon footprint calculator" (having seen the Government's attempt, this is not too ambitious a claim - more on this later). It has evolved to so that you can get a more accurate quote for your secondary footprint based on your lifestyle (I particularly enjoyed the wording of some of these options: "I enjoy carbon intensive leisure pusuits...").

The Carbon Footprint site reports that the UK average footprint has also reduced 11% to 9.8 tonnes, which is great news, but unfortunately the worldwide average needs to reduce to 2 tonnes per head to combat climate change. So we still have our work cut out...

I'm dreaming of a green Christmas...

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:49:00 +0000

So, ways in which we tried to reduce our carbon emissions this Christmas:

Send e-cards - save on transport and manufacturing emissions. It does seem a bit of a waste to send paper cards which just get chucked away in January. We used Cancer Research which has a choice of cards, and rather usefully remembered all the email addresses from last year so it was very quick to send cards out again. We donated some money to show that we were not just being cheapskates :) Added advantage is that you can send them out on Christmas Eve rather than worrying about last postage dates. Friends of ours send ecards with cute pictures of their kids in santa's elves outfits, which is a bit more personal alternative (but, I think only if you have kids - a presidential-style couple shot by the holly-covered mantlepiece is a bit much).
A cautionary tale - my father insisted on printing out his ecard so he could put it out with his others. Some people may not appreciate ecards.

Virtual presents - we gave a few people Oxfam Unwrapped presents. Saves on transport and manufacturing emissions, and helps save the world. The two school books to an African school reduced my teacher mother-in-law to tears on Christmas Day. So if you put a bit of thought in, it can still be a nice personal present. I'm usually first in line to be cynical about some of these schemes - not sustainable, is the money actually doing good etc - but I have two friends who work at Oxfam who assured my that this scheme does genuinely help, so I decided to trust them.
Food

Buy locally - save on food miles by sourcing local turkeys and other food.
Avoid food with lots of packaging
Don't buy too much food that will just be wasted.

Reusable trees - get a real Christmas tree that you can replant in the garden (transport emissions) - we didn't actually do this, as we didn't get round to putting up any tree. But in theory, this has to be better than getting a new tree every year. Or is it? Perhaps we should encourage more trees to be planted? My instinct would be that the transport emissions would more than offset any CO2 absorbed by the tree, but I am happy to debate this. Or, just get an artificial one - will last for years.
Foist eco-presents onto others (whether they like it or not) - ho ho ho. Credit to my father who bought us a "no more standby" electrical plug device. We gave a few people onya bags. Buy kids board games instead of plastic electrical things requiring batteries.
Use recycled wrapping paper - didn't manage this in the pre-Christmas rush. Oops. At very least, make sure you recycle all your cards and paper.
Turn off the Christmas lights (and all the other lights) when you are not around (save energy). Consider remonstrating neighbours who insist on lighting up their whole house with moving santa tableaus.
Get low-energy LED christmas lights (save energy).
Recycle presents - come on we've all done it. Better to pass on that tasteful jumper than to throw it way and add to the landfill.

Feeling a bit hypocritical as I have just booked a flight to Grenada in Feb and a skiing trip in March... not sure a local turkey is going to make up for that.

Recycling: can we trust our councils?

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:42:00 +0000

Like all good upright citizens I invest time in trying to recycle as much as possible, including separating out various types of waste which the council deems incompatible. In Richmond, this means putting envelopes and paper into different receptacles, which I forgave as they also take kitchen waste which seemed like a good step.

I was really pleased when Richmond recently expanded its scheme to cover plastic bottles and cardboard (about time too). So, imagine my disappointment when they missed the collection due to "serious over-demand" - apparently there was 20% more recycling than normal, I mean how could anyone have predicted that! Our recycling sat on the pavement for over a week getting soggy. Eventually some bin men arrived, threw everything into the normal bin and put it all in the back of a normal rubbish truck. I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. When asked the council what was going on, they said:

In order to deal with [extra demand], we are collecting some of our
recycling in refuse vehicles which can compact it. The 'co-mingled'
recycling is then taken to a special recycling facility in Greenwich and
separated for recycling. Please do not be concerned, it is still being
recycled and will not end up in a landfill site.

I thought this sounded a bit suspicious. The real story was uncovered after tireless journalism from the local paper, who found that [at least] three lorry loads of recycling materials had been taken to landfill by the council's contractors, just days after the borough's environment chief had described the claims as a myth.

It's enough to make me put my envelopes in with the potato peelings in disgust.

Paperless finances = no more filing?

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:52:00 +0000

Just finished an epic filing session which made me realise how bad paper statements are on many levels: a waste of paper, energy and effort as well as monumentally boring to deal with. So, I've tried to turn all of my accounts paperless. Here are the results - in reverse order of performance:

6. Worst performer in sixth place: Capital One
Who not only do not provide paperless statements, they have no information saying this on their website. I gave in and phoned them and they said that they were "legally required" to send me paper statements. I asked why other credit card companies were not legally required, and he said - with faultless logic - that they were other companies so he didn't know. I asked if they had any plans to change this, and he said no. I pointed out the environmental impact, and the guy actually laughed. Nice. I guess when you send out that much junk mail, you probably aren't that concerned about the environment.

5. John Lewis partnership card - who also have no option for online statements but at least said that they were working at it.

4. Amex (Red card) - they had messaging on the homepage and very simple process. I liked that they were very specific that they would send me an email when the statement was ready. They lost points only on the meaningless branding - "My St@tement" - really...

3. First Direct - had a link on their homepage urging me to turn to paperless statements and offering to plant a tree on my behalf as well. I can even vote for where the tree is planted. They have a cute virtual forest with one tree per account that had gone paperless (one real tree planeted for every 20 virtual trees), 2,500 trees planted to date. Once in internet banking, they lost points for trying harder to get me to take out a credit card than signposting the paperless statement option, but it was pretty easy to work out. I chose to turn off paper statements and also opted to receive changes to Ts&Cs online. Could have been clearer if they are going to send me an email when the statement is issued. Encouraging me to print the statements anyway somewhat spoiled the overall effect.

2. HSBC (who own First Direct) had the same virtual forest and tree-planting deal, but were promoting it in their internet banking and the process felt more slick.

And.... drumrolllllll
In first place - Egg - has had online statementing only since their launch, saving costs and the environment together. So, no fanfare or tree planting, but probably saved a few trees anyway over the last six years of no paper statements.

So, my summary of good practice for paperless statementing would be
- send an email when the statement is generated and be clear that you are going to do this
- signpost the option to have paperless statements prominently within internet banking
- offer a small incentive (like HSBC's tree planting) to max the feel-good
- don't encourage people to print the statements anyway

Total carbon emission savings? I will try to find out ...

Low carbon holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:34:00 +0000

Just got back from the best holiday. We got the train down to Dorset, and spent a week walking along the South West Coast Path from little village to little village. We stayed at B&Bs along the way and ate at funny local pubs. The weather was amazing. More photos.

Made me realise that this is the first holiday I have ever been on where I didn't once get in a plane or car. Hopefully there will be more...

Green shoes?

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:17:00 +0000

Once you start thinking about it, there are lots of pretty painless ways to impact the environment less through your buying choices.

Starting with shoes - I bought a pair of shoes from a Spanish company called el Naturalista earlier this year. They are comfortable and funky (I don't think I've ever been more complimented on a pair of shoes, but that is possibly more of a statement about the rest of my shoe-drobe).

But more importantly, this is a company with values.

they live by an "eco-policy" that they also require all suppliers and agents to comply with. They use the least harmful materials they can to produce their shoes, including natural dyes and recycled rubber.
they support local producers
they promise to pay suppliers fairly
they have founded a charity for the education of Peruvian children, the Atuochi project, which they donate to with each pair of shoes.
and they have frogs drawn on the soles of the shoes. You can't beat that (my niece was jealous anyway)

You can order from thier site (which has nice touches an ipod function so you can listen to music they like while you shop) and there are a bunch of UK stockists as well, including the Natural Shoe Store.

Drive or fly?

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:56:00 +0000

We've got a week's holiday coming up and decided to keep it local. So we are planning a walking holiday in Western Ireland, and I'm investigating options to get there. We all know flying is bad, but is it that much worse than driving?

Turns out, CO2 wise, it's three times as bad. But, much cheaper and faster. Dilemmas...

Visualising consumption

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:16:00 +0000

Just back from a trip to San Jose (yes, I have offset it), where I picked up a copy of a magazine called "Good". It seems to be about a wide range of issues that people care about, and has some interesting articles and pretty graphs (always hard to represent data visually in an entertaining way, sometimes they lost clarity for style but at least they tried).

One article I enjoyed was about a photographic artist Chris Jordan who is using his art to help people visualise numbers that are hard to appreciate, for example the 60,000 plastic bags used by Americans every 5 seconds (below). He's also done a series on American mass consumption. Worth checking out.

Over the moon (cup)

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:56:00 +0000

Warning: we're about to discuss menstrual products, people of a nervous disposition may want to skip this post.

Tampons. They're pretty horrible things.

They take six months to biodegrade (pads, with their plastic backing, last forever) - imagine them hanging around in landfill sites and sewage treatment farms, or more worryingly in the sea.
70% of sewage system blockages are due to sanitary waste (source: Woman's environmental network), and once sanitary waste gets to the sea it can really mess up marine life (Beachwatch). When Beachwatch carried out their 2001 survey, they found more than 14 towels/pantliners and four tampon applicators per kilometre of beach.
They're expensive: in 2001 we spent £370 million on them (source: WEN's Seeing Red), approx. £20 each a year.
We get through a lot of them: 12,000 in the average woman's lifetime (Seeing Red)
They contain chemicals (from pesticides to bleach), and can cause Toxic Shock Syndrome (rare)
They smell, and leak, and you have to remember to buy them and carry them around.
And I don't know about you, but I'm pretty fed up with the woman-in-white-jeans-rollerblading-along-the-beach ads.

Anyway, I haven't yet been able to find any data on the carbon emissions of manufacturing, distributing and disposing tampons but I will keep looking. But I think it is safe to say if we can get rid of tampons, we'll be saving carbon emissions.

So, I've just started using the Mooncup - a small cup of made of industrial grade silicone which you wear inside you. It catches menstrual discharge and is reusable - should last for years. And it brilliant - last week, I went on two runs, swam, spent an hour in a jacuzzi and 8 hours on a plane, and I've never been more confident that I wasn't going to leak. And it's great that you don't need to carry anything with you, and don't need to change it as often. It's undetectable, you can't feel it when it is in position, and you quickly get the hang of removing and inserting it.

You can buy them from Boots (or other stockists) or direct from their website, which I used and it delivered in days. They are £18.99 which is a bargain when you think that wouldn't buy 10 packs of tampons.

10 year's worth of tampons, or one Mooncup (pictured is the Keeper, the rubber alternative to the Mooncup)

Run your washing machine at 30 degC

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Mon, 28 May 2007 16:36:00 +0000

Ariel have been running a campaign to encourage us to run our washing machines at 30°C. We switched to this as our default about 6 months ago and frankly (even though we don't use Ariel special low-temperature powder) we have noticed absolutely no difference in the results. Much to my husband's disappointment, this may be the only way in I resemble Helena Christensen.

So how much difference does this make? Ariel says 40% of your energy usage (presumably that part relating to washing clothes).

When you wash clothes, 90% of the energy is used in heating the water (according to the Centre for Alternative Technology) . As energy used to heat water is proportional to the temperature rise (energy required = mass x specific heat capacity x temperature difference), this means that Ariel are assuming that 50% of the energy is being used to heat the water from ambient to 30 deg C, and the saved 40% is the additional energy required to get the water from 30 to 40 deg C. So the ambient water temperature would be 17.5°, which sounds pretty high (I would have guessed 10-12 °), but I've just gone to check it with my oven thermometer and it is correct. The 30° cycle is shorter than the 40° cycle, so this will save even more.

But how much of my electricity bill is going on my washing machine in the first place? General estimates are around 20% (I'll try and work out a better one). So saving 40% of 20% means saving 8% of my electricity bill, or 266 kgs of CO2. Just over 1% of my personal carbon footprint. Well, it's a start, and a pretty painless step.

A few more washing machine tips...

Always wash a full load - each load uses (and heats) the same amount of water so you might as well fill it up.
Only use the pre-wash cycle if you really need it (uses about 15% more energy).
Use stain treaters to avoid needing to wash at higher temperatures.
Buy an energy efficient waching machine.

Plastic bags: give 'em up!

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Mon, 14 May 2007 21:59:00 +0000

There are 17 billion plastic bags given out to British consumers every year. Only 1 in 200 are recycled, and the rest take from 15 to 1,000 years to biodegrade. Then there is the energy cost of producing them... (although, interestingly, plastic bags are better than paper bags) .

This is an easy one to give up.

I bought an "onya" bag today - naff name, but a great idea. They are carrier bag-sized bags made out of parachute silk with a little built-in stuff sack so they pack up super tiny, weighing only 50g - so you always have one onya - geddit. http://www.onyabags.co.uk. It was £6 in the lovely deli in Balham, or you can buy online. Cheaper than those trendy designer "This is not a plastic bag" bags...

Meanwhile, a town in Devon has banned plastic bags, and Waitrose has become the latest supermarket to announce a trial two-week ban after the success of Sainsbury's one-day ban.

Sounds great, but we could go a lot further - a 15p "plastax" plastic bag tax in Ireland has lead to a 90% reduction in use. Taiwan has not only banned plastic bags, but also all disposable plastic packaging from fast food, resulting in a 25% reduction in landfill waste. And even the US are getting involved - later in the year, San Francisco will become the first major US city to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags.

So come on UK - keep up!

Intermission

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Mon, 14 May 2007 21:54:00 +0000

It's been a while - apologies for the gap. We were in New Zealand for 3 weeks which was fantastic (holiday pics). The best bit was hiring a little campervan so we could drive whereever we wanted and stopped overnight in some beautiful locations. Lots of fresh air, clean water and incredible views. After that, no excuse, just busy...

Changing electricity providers part IV

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:32:00 +0000

So we received our welcome pack from Ecotricity last week. It had no information about which tariff we were on, but did include a leaflet about the rates on their Economy 7 tariff. So, not unreasonably, I assumed we were on that tariff. I called them to find out and had a very confusing conversation with a lady there about what all the tariffs used to be called and what they were now, which culminated in her assuring me that we were on the 100% green one.

So, Dale, eco-hero,

Why don't you let people choose their tariff more easily when they sign up? Why do you completely hide the New Energy Plus (all-green option)?
Why are you not telling me what tariff I AM on in the welcome letter, to avoid me calling your offices and wasting your time?
Why are you including sheets of information about tariffs that I am not on?
And, most importantly, why are you sending me a paper-based welcome pack?? I am clearly a person of green persuasion, as you are, all I really want is an email telling me when to take a meter reading and referring me to your website for the PR puff.
And a paper DD form? Sort it out! Everyone else manages to do this online...

Ecotricity is a great company and I believe they are the most green option out there, but they are letting themselves down by not encouraging people to take the 100% green option (and therefore getting more money for Ecotricity's good work), and also by wasting resources in the setting up of accounts.

New toy

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 14:24:00 +0000

I've bought a little gadget that you can plug into your electrical socket to measure how much electricity is being used. I'm going to use this to answer some of the questions I have around recommendations I have seen bandied around -

How much energy really does a mobile phone charger use when it is just left plugged in?
Or when the phone has finished charging?
Is it better to turn your PC off, or put it on standby (or hibernate), avoiding the allegedly power-hungry start-up cycle?
Is the standby LED on your TV really that bad?

Are these potential energy savings really significant? Watch this space...

Offsetting

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 21:09:00 +0000

After flying out to Italy for weekend skiing (which involved a heated outdoor pool and a sauna) I was feeling pretty bad about my carbon footprint (but it was brilliant!). So, carbon offsetting. Good or bad?

I've always worried that companies just buy forests to absolve their guilt/pacify their shareholders, and that they feel this absolves them from doing anything about their energy usage - like permission to pollute. Clearly this is wrong, reduction of direct and indirect carbon emissions must be the priority. But I've come round to the point of view that, while you should first reduce what you can, some carbon emissions are hard to avoid. Yes I know, I could refuse to fly for work, and only holiday in Cornwall. But this blog is about practical, realistic steps that normal people can take to reduce their impact on the environment, not about starting an eco hippy commune with a composting toilet. So, I'm still going to fly.

But I've read about offsetting companies planting the wrong kind of trees, messing up local ecosystems etc. And I'm not that convinced about planting trees. How do they work out how many trees to plant? What time period do they "pay back" over? And most offsetting companies are American, and I'd like to do something more local.

So this is what I found out:

Native Energy manage the offsetting for An Inconvenient Truth, which seemed like a good place to start. They are very US centric, but had some useful pointers:

Some offsetters let you invest in renewable energy projects such as wind turbines, or projects to reduce methane emissions from cow farms (methane has 24 times the carbon emission impact of CO2!) not just tree planting.
Look for offsetters that support new renewable energy projects - this helps build demand for green projects.
Look at who benefits from the project - for example Native Energy support native Indian communities by employing them to build the new energy projects, which might appeal to some.
If you want to know how offsetting is calculated - here's their explanation.

Closer to home, Climate Care had a good placement on Google. 80% of their offsetting is from carbon reduction projects, 20% from carbon sequestration (protecting and regenerating rainforests).

They invest in projects globally, and have a broad portfolio of projects, all have a community involvement theme. For example, replacing diesel pumps with human -powered pumps in India, using crop waste instead of fossil fuels, investing in efficient lighting, along with your usual building wind turbines.
They think my flight to San Francisco created 2.47 tonnes of CO2 and it will cost me £18.53 to offset.
They've won an Ashden award (who reward the best examples of community-based sustainable energy around the world), presented by Prince Charles, so they must be ok....

Carbon Clear offer calculators to work out how much to offset - including one for your baby's nappies. Nice idea! I liked their principles for project selection:

Projects must be efficient.
Projects must have additional, long-term benefits to the communities that undertake them.
Projects should follow the spirit of the Kyoto agreement. Projects must make measurable pollution reductions over and above their normal level, and it is only this additional benefit to the environment that Carbon Clear supports.
But they just invest in reforestation, with little choice of project.
They wanted £13.50 for a transatlantic return flight (1.5 tonnes), I think I am closer to the £23.50 for a South African flight (2.8 tonnes).

Ecobusiness links compares different UK and US providers on cost and style of offsetting. This made me realise I'm not that price sensitive, but I do like a choice of project. Also that it is a good idea to look for independent certification / validation that they are doing good stuff. Which lead me back to...
The Carbon Neutral Company, which does what it says on the tin. They are business-oriented, but offer some products for consumers.

They are audited by KPMG and verified by the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management and a special Independent Advisory Committee, and they've worked with overr 200 big companies in the 10 years they've been going.
They take a similar approach mainlining on carbon reduction with 20% support for forestation projects. I liked their Carbon Neutral Protocol (pdf), which specifies that their projects must include measuring and monitoring the carbon offset
And their clear project selection guidelines for technology projects.
You can offset specific flights, driving, your home, or just go for a package to offset all your CO2 ("Carbon Neutral Citizen").

I'm planning to do some more research here, but in the mean time, I am convinced by the Carbon Neutral Company's professionalism and accountability.

Annoyingly, you can't add up multiple offenses (e.g. several flights + car), or just enter in the number of tonnes you want to offset. I wanted to offset about 11 tonnes (all my flights + car usage from last year), so I played with the Carbon Neutral Citizen thing until I found a country where the average CO2 emissions per person were 11 tonnes (Former Soviet Republic), and went for that.

I could chose to invest in one of three portfolios, which each gave more info about the projects and how the offset is calculated.

planting trees in the UK - indigenous trees within long term woodlands which have public access (£78)
investing in new technologies (wind turbines in NZ and Jamaica) (£80)
or international community projects (solar lighting in India, orchard planing in India) (£97)

I really wanted wind turbines in the UK. But I guess I am already supporting them through Ecootricity. So I went for the the international technology, which looked like a fast and long-term return. And maybe I can visit the wind turbine in NZ when I go there later this month - after generating 2.5 odd tonnes of CO2 on my flight over there...

Calculating my carbon footprint

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 15:39:00 +0000

I wanted to work out my baseline carbon footprint (tonnes of CO2 produced from the burning of hydrocarbons in my everyday life) , so I can see the impact of making changes. There are loads of carbon calculators out there, the ones which were most UK-centric and that I found useful were:

an article by a home eco-auditor in the Independent which has the multiplication factors to work out tonnes of CO2 from different sources.
the Carbon Neutral website, which has a carbon calculators for most areas including a very comprehensive flights area.
a carbon footprint calculator from a UK company called Carbon Footprint. This also gave figures for secondary (indirect) carbon consumption - carbon emissions involved in your food & drink, clothes, public services etc. These are not calculated, just average UK figures. They also gave typical values for UK households so you can see how you compare... I want to do some more digging around this, I don't know how average my secondary usage is.
BP provide a very flashy carbon calculator (which gave my lowest CO2 emissions estimate - it's almost like they want you not to worry about it...).

The sources all gave different answers for my direct footprint, +/- 3 tonnes CO2. I've gone with the upper values to be conservative (which were from the carbon footprint site). Here are my numbers:

And in graph form... (click to enlarge)

In working this out, I was surprised by a few things:

That our car usage (which I had always regarded as modest - mainly weekends away, 10k miles in the year) - was the single biggest contributor to my personal direct footprint, weighing in with a massive 1.4 tonnes of CO2.
That my gas usage (cooking and heating) contributes 73% more CO2 than electricity.
That our gas and electricity usage were below the national averages - probably because we are never in!

I was not surprised that my business flights (two trips to the US and two to Europe) bumped my total footprint to 75% over the UK average.

So, I've got my work cut out! The next few posts are going to cover:

Primary personal footprint - reducing energy usage where I can.
Primary business footprint - asking my work what they are doing to reduce unecessary flights, and offsetting necessary ones.
Secondary footprint - finding viable choices to reduce my secondary footprint, and working out what I can do to persuade companies and the government to do the same.
... and offsetting the rest.

Go green guides

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 19:50:00 +0000

Just found this site Treehugger. It's a a cluttered, overwhelming site with thousands of green articles and even more ads (and very right-on in a hyper-American type way), but I thought it was worth spreading the word about their series of guides on how to get greener. I'll be picking out some of their more practical ideas here and telling you about the results (I didn't find building my own eco-friendly house that actionable a suggestion right now...).

Investing for a better world part I

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:35:00 +0000

(quick diversion from global warming to global poverty)

Today I discovered Kiva, a non-profit site that aggregates microfinance requests from organisations representing individuals in developing countries (more about how they work). You choose a specific individual who you want to lend the money to, how much you want to lend, and pay by PayPal or credit card. You can take a portfolio approach, investing a little in a range of businesses to spread the risk (each loan request is fulfilled by multiple donors). You get emails through the course of the loan updating you on the progress of your debtor, and at the end of the loan duration you can reinvest or withdraw.

Realistically, I'm not the best person to chose which individual gets a loan. So the best bit for me is that Kiva works with local agencies to preselect people who have the skills and attitude required to make the most of their loan, and therefore make the funds to repay it. This has lead to their 100% repayment record.

But how do you know you are going to get the money back? Some of these loans are going to the homes of the most prolific and ingenious internet scammers about. And what about the local partners? If the governments are corrupt, how can you be so sure about them. And then the individuals - how do you know that they are going to use the money for what they say?

The answer is you don't. You have to trust and believe that people are basically good. Microfinance organisations around the world (the World Bank estimates that there are now over 7,000 lending $2.5bn a year) and hundreds of studies have shown that repayment rates are very high when you let local groups set the criteria for lending and select who gets a loan. The largest and most famous microfinance bank, Grameen bank in India (home of Nobel prize winner and father of microlending Prof. Muhammad Yunus) has nearly 6 million borrowers, and has disbursed over $5.4 billion has a steady repayment rate of around 98%.

More info:

The United Nations Capital Development Fund has a centre for microfinance with lots of background material
Microcredit library from the Global Development Resource Centre - a very ugly and unusable site, but lots of good information.

Anyway, I chose to lend to:

A formidible looking woman called Akou (above) in Togo, who needs capital to expand her food business to support her children after the death of her husband.
An enthusiastic looking young man called Kokouvi also in Togo, who is going to set up a food shop in order to pay for the education of his little brothers and sisters.

I'll keep you posted with their progress...

Changing electricity providers part III

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:27:00 +0000

Signed up with Ecotricity online tonight, pretty straightforward except they can't do DD online (no big deal) and there didn't seem to be an option to choose the all-green option, they sign you up to the part-green option by default. Why? I want to pay more for all green! Surely they want this... I emailed them to correct this, will keep you posted on the set-up.

But - with EDF we got a £40 dual fuel discount for getting gas and electricity. Can you get greener gas? It doesn't look like it. But you can get cheaper gas. USwitch tells us that by switiching our gas to nPower (who we think are not too evil - see posts passim) we will save £40 anyway. Hurrah. nPower it is.

So in summary,

I've switched my electricity provider to Ecotricity. My supply will be a mix of new green (Ecotricity's wind turbines) and old green (existing wind, solar and tidal sources), with a commitment to continued investment in growing new green resources.
This will cost approx. £14 more a year and I have lost my £40 dual fuel discount.
But switching gas to nPower saves me £40 anyway!
Switching has saved the equivilent of a return flight to New York in CO2 emissions

Changing electricity providers part II

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:57:00 +0000

So, then I found Ecotricity, the UK's largest independent green energy company, set up by "Eco Hero" Dale Vince OBE (new-age traveller turned corporate hot-shot) with the express purpose of changing the way that electricity is generated and supplied in order to bring about significant environmental improvement. As a company without shareholders it can make decisions based on what is best for the planet, not on what maximises profit. They spent the most per customer on building deep-green resources (by almost 10x) of any energy provider (more info - this site is authored by Ecotricity so unsurprisingly they come out the best, but the facts do seem to be backed up by the big provider's sites).

Ecotricity has two tariffs:
1. New Energy - 26% energy from "new green" (i.e. Ecotricity's green sources), rest "brown", tariff is matched to that of your regional provider. Proceeds are ploughed into building more new green capacity.
2. New Energy Plus - same committment to building new sources, but ALL your energy is green - the 26% new green is topped up with "old green" (existing wind, solar and tidal). This is scarce so tariff is 0.5p more per unit.

We decided to go with the all-green option. If our electricity usage is the same as last year, this will cost us £16.27 more than the part-green option (which would cost the same as our current supplier EDF).

And they will plant a tree when we switch. And you can climb up their wind turbine in Norfolk - we are already planning a visit!

So where's the catch?

They are small. nPower's total spend on new green resources was 7x Ecotricity's in 2004 . But they are growing (looks like the spend will be pretty similar this year) and they are totally dedicated.
How do you know that Dale is going to invest your extra cash in the most efficient way possible? I guess you don't. But there is no premium on the tariff, so it's no difference to you and they are definately building new turbines.

More info:

article in the Ecologist on the subject of changing electricity suppliers which favours Ecotricity, which provided many of the facts in this post
article in The Independent about measuring your "carbon fitness"
which I used to calculate CO2 emissions
Ecotricity's website

Changing electricity providers part I

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:33:00 +0000

So, it's been a while... apologies.

I decided to start with electricity. I found out that the burning of fossil fuels to create electricity accounts for 35-40% of the UK's carbon emissions. In 1989, when the energy market was deregulated, approx. 3.5% of the supply was from "deep green" sources (wind, tidal, solar). Today, over 17 years later, that percentage is... wait for it... still 3.5%. Brilliantly, the government's target is for this to be 20% by 2020 (that's 13 year's time). Go, Tony Blair.

Anyway, last year my household used 3,254 units of electricity, the generation of which created 1.3 tonnes of CO2 (the same as a return flight to New York). My current provider is the evil EDF, who last year not only did not contribute to the creation of green energy sources, but were in fact among the top 5 UK CO2 emitters.

I found that most of the electricity providers provide a "green" tariff, which largely seems to involve paying a premium to guarentee that your energy comes from an exisiting green source ("old green"). Of course, this does not actually mean that your house is wired up to a wind turbine, the provider just makes sure that enough green energy goes into the National Grid to cover your usage. Some also provide off-setting (planting trees to counterbalance the CO2 produced in the generation of your electricity).

This didn't strike me as actually doing much to solve the problem in the longer term i.e. making a step-change in the capacity of green energy supplies in the UK. Sure, some of them (most for example nPower) do invest something in new green sources, but it didn't seem to be top of the agenda.

The search goes on...

A journey to a better life

noreply@blogger.com (Pippa Gawley) — Mon, 15 May 2006 18:25:00 +0000

I've always been plagued by a feeling that I should be doing more - if not to actively save the world, to stop destroying it quite so wantonly.

But environmental change is such a complex, controversial and mystical area. Will it really make any difference to the world if I lag my loft? Does it actually save energy to recycle a plastic bottle? And, the burning question of if I should I turn off my computer at night.

But, a confused media message is no real excuse for inaction nowadays. I've decided to find out practical steps that busy people can take to make a genuine difference to the world. Small changes, all moving in the right direction, all worth doing.