to Reduce your Carbon Footprint

Our homes in the UK contribute about 22% of the nation’s carbon emissions, including those from heating, lighting, and appliances. The amount of carbon emissions created by the way we travel, including driving to work or the superstore or flying around the world on vacation, is second only to heating.

By implementing tiny behavioural changes, choosing low-carbon transportation options, and renovating our homes, we can lower our carbon emissions while also making a difference in the fight against the climate emergency. Here, we look at solutions for various budgets and lifestyles, such as changing your heating settings, switching to LED lightbulbs, or buying an electric car.

For most of us, the first step in cutting carbon emissions is to take control of our heating. We can reduce our carbon emissions and energy usage by making sure we’re not using more heating than we need.

Heating controls are evolving rapidly and investing in modern, easy to use controls is a good way to make sure you’re only using heating when necessary. To do this effectively, for a central heating system you’ll need a timer or programmer, a room thermostat and thermostatic radiator valves.

Smart heating controls are available for all types of heating systems, including electric storage heaters. Some systems include automation features, which can help by working out exactly when to turn the heating on and off.

All the energy we use in our homes leads to additional carbon emissions. Over half of home energy is used for heating, so it’s important to make sure that the walls, roof, and floors in your home are insulated, cutting back on heat waste and reducing your carbon footprint.

If you want a quick remedy, insulate any exposed hot water lines and, if you have one, your hot water storage tank. Your home will be warmer in the winter, your energy bills will go down, and your carbon footprint will decrease if you insulate the building itself.

Insulating your walls is a good place to start, as around a third of the heat lost from an uninsulated home escape through the walls. The cost of insulating walls depends on what type of home you have: homes with a cavity wall (typically built after about 1920) are the easiest to insulate, while older homes will require solid wall insulation.

Your house may be losing heat up your chimney, through spaces between the floorboards, and around the windows and doors. A practical method to conserve energy and cut your household’s carbon emissions is to draught-proof these places. It’s simple to do and, in many instances, doesn’t call for a specialist.

Lighting is one of the big success stories of home energy efficiency. A modern LED bulb uses 80-90% less energy than a traditional lightbulb, which helps to lower your carbon emissions and electricity bills.

If you replace all the bulbs in your home with LED lights, you could reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by up to 65kg a year. This is equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted by driving your car around 220 miles.

Since the first Covid-19 lockdown began in March 2020, many people across the UK have reduced their transport emissions by switching to walking or cycling over short distances. However, as restrictions have eased and people start to travel more freely, it’s likely these carbon emissions will begin to creep up.

There are around 67 million people in the UK. If we all continue as we are, climate change will get worse. But if we each reduce our own energy consumption, even just a little, that would add up to a huge reduction in our national carbon emissions.

Taking control of our energy consumption and reducing our own emissions is a positive step towards keeping our planet safe for future generations.