Your carbon footprint - any idea what it is?

I expect we all want to live in a way that is better for the planet – but it can be very confusing to know what to do for the best. In a post last week, I talked about how even when I am trying to do the right thing I can end up doing the wrong thing. You can read that post here: http://milkandnosugar.blogspot.com/2021/11/trying-my-best-and-failing.html
 
I should confess at this point that I used to be a maths teacher and therefore I love data and numbers.

I also used to teach IT – trying to get pupils to fall in love with spreadsheets. So the science and the data related to the climate crisis and our response is something that I embrace rather than fear.

I ended last week’s post by thinking about carbon footprints and how we often have nowhere near enough data to know what that really is – beyond the very broad approach of buy local, in season and avoid cows! 

However much I might love a beautifully coloured spreadsheet I simply don’t have the time or the information required to calculate the carbon footprint of a pork pie verses a soft cheese covered in almonds from Denmark. What I need is an app that does the hard work for me.
 
I came across an article in the Guardian with the title, ‘Sustainable gin and family-sized crisps! My week eating a climatarian diet’ - you can read it here: 
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/nov/10/fig-rolls-out-seaweed-in-my-week-eating-a-climatarian-diet
 
This article pointed me towards two resources. 

The first was an online carbon footprint calculator called ‘giki zero’ – where giki stands for ‘get informed and know your impact’. There are lots of other calculators too. You enter as much information as you want / can about your lifestyle and they give you a carbon footprint score, with an estimate of how many kgs of CO2 you produce in a year. They show you how that relates to the global and UK average and steps you can take to reduce that towards a target that they claim is consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2030.
 
Obviously, the more information you enter the more accurate the estimate will be. For example, you can simply enter the number of bedrooms in your house to get a very rough energy consumption estimate – or you can enter specific details from your energy bills.
 
So far, I have only entered detailed information from our electricity and oil bills. Everything else has been based on estimates and answers to general questions. But based on this, my current carbon emission stands at a bit less than 6,000kg per year. 
 
Giki reckons that this needs to be 2,500kg by 2030 if we’re going to hit the 1.5C global warming target. That’s quite a reduction. 

You can play around with the calculator to see the impact of certain decisions. Last time I talked about going largely meat free – something that saves a bit less that 1,000kg of CO2 a year. Giki also gives you helpful, small suggestions of things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint.
 
The other helpful resource – which I’ll talk about next week – is an app that gives you some idea of the carbon impact of the food that we buy in the supermarket, simply by scanning its barcode.