And here it is, the long-awaited 2017 Carbon Footprint calculation!
Using our utility bills, car and rail mileage, the Climate Care calculator, the lame Virgin Rail Footprint calculator, the excellent SCNF one and NEF‘s I have calculated that our family’s footprint is about 11 tonnes.
To put this in perspective 11 tonnes is the same amount of CO2 emitted as one business class flight to Australia.
This is broken down in the graph.
| Electricity | 2.13 |
| Gas | 2.83 |
| Food | 2.10 |
| Clothes/Stuff | 1.00 |
| Car | 1.51 |
| Holidays | 1.37 |
| Total | 10.94 |
This is down from 12.22 last year ( despite adding in stuff and food) because of our greener holiday choices, and more use of train travel. Electricity usage is down slightly thanks to switching entirely to LED lightbulbs and being more careful, gas slightly down too probably just due to weather variations, although the Hive may have helped by allowing us to remotely switch on and off our hot water. Food and clothes emissions are still difficult to reliably calculate although we have made progress with our flexitarian choices, reducing our beef consumption and eating more non-farmed fish.
There’s a great graph here to help with food choices:
This graph from Business Insider also has a great breakdown of the explanations behind the food emissions calculations.
Our next step is to really try and work on our domestic gas usage – so double glazing is next on the list.