A year ago I wrote a blog outlining my 2020 New Year’s Resolution to achieve a personal carbon footprint of just 3 tonnes for the whole year. I had chosen 3 tonnes as my target simply because it was half the lowest-end of the average footprint of a UK citizen (which ranges between 6 – 10 tonnes/year). It was deliberately a ridiculously stretching target. Global CO2 levels were regularly bumping over 410ppm, significantly above the 380ppm ‘safe’ level and I wanted to see just how difficult/cumbersome/life-changing it would be to significantly reduce my footprint. The answer is: not very much.
A year on I can
share that my carbon footprint for 2020 was 3.117 tonnes, rising to 4.631
tonnes if I include all my work-related activities. I missed my target, but not
by much. More importantly I really didn’t need to change much in my life to
achieve this reduction. It basically came down to just three things: travel,
heating and diet.
Of course, back
in January 2020 ‘Covid19’ was a word we were just beginning to hear perhaps as
the third item on a TV news report, usually after disheartening items on Brexit
and the US election (it is somewhat depressing that the order may have changed
but the same three stories still dominate…). Little did I know back in
January 2020 just how much the Covid19 pandemic would helping me hit my
Resolution target. For example, in 2019 I took 104 flights as part of my
job. In 2020 I did just two. One might expect such a dramatic change to mean my
work-life suffered, but that has not been the case. One of the few positives to
come out of this dreadful pandemic is the rapid, almost universal acceptance
that most work-related meetings can be done virtually. Either that or all those
face-to-face meetings I have been dutifully having with my overseas clients all
these years was actually a waste of time. They didn’t want to see me after all.
Perhaps I can earn more by getting people to pay me to stay away.
In early April we
bought a 100% electric car. This further helped ensure that my carbon footprint
remained low when the lockdown was (temporarily) lifted. Not content with this,
I went one step further and in November got myself banned from driving for 6
months. And yes, regular readers, this is my second such driving ban in 4
years. You would think I would learn. You would be wrong.
My second area of focus was on heating my home. In early March, literally 2 days before Lockdown One commenced, an Air-Source Heat pump was installed at our home, taking us completely off the gas grid. The cost was minimal due to government grants, and the heating is just as good, if not better, than a traditional boiler. Slightly worryingly, 9 months after having been disconnected from the gas grid my local gas supply company is still estimating our usage and sending regular bills. When I ring them they acknowledge that this is wrong, say they will sort it, and then send another bill a few weeks later.
Looking at the data for my electricity usage during 2020 it has risen in as we enter winter, but this is because it now includes all our usual home electronics, plus the contribution for powering the Air Source Heat pump, plus the contribution from charging our electric car (my wife still selfishly drives despite me petitioning her to join me in my driving ban). There is a minor off-set to our grid-electricity footprint due to the PV panels we have installed on our rooftop. These panels are almost 10 years old and, rather annoyingly, at the height of the glorious 2020 summer the invertor failed. It took 29 days to get it fixed and I estimate this ‘cost’ me about 100kg of carbon (29 days at 0.28kgCO2/kWh x 12 kWh/day).
My final focus
area was my diet. In 2019 I followed a pretty standard meat based diet, which
has a carbon footprint of around 5.6kg/day. From Jan 1st 2020 I
started eating more pescatarian, vegetarian and vegan meals. It wasn’t a
hardship. It was a pleasure. I am not a vegetarian (I still eat meat every now
and then) but I just eat less. I do however feel a little grumpy that it took
51 years for me to discover Oat Milk. How can something that is so irrefutably
tastier (and better for you) than any other type of milk still be some sort of
grocery secret. Mad. My average food carbon footprint during 2020 was
4.4kg/day, putting me just between a low-meat eater and a
pescatarian/vegetarian.
So as we enter
2021 I have a new goal: 2.5 tonnes/year. I share this news because today, for
the first time since humans first appeared on the planet, our atmospheric
carbon levels are at 417ppm, and are rising steadily. We have to change. All of
us. If the above shows anything it is that reducing our carbon footprint really
isn’t that hard. I honestly wish it had been harder so that I could claim some
proper environmental glory. I have written this blog for 5.5 years. Over
Christmas the cumulative number of visits to my blogsite finally passed 50,000.
I briefly felt rather pleased about this, until my youngest son put a 1 minute
music video on TikTok. In 4 days he has had 180,000 hits (that’s 2000 times my
blogs frequency).
I need to find a
way to get this message into a 30 second music clip, preferably with someone
falling over or dancing provocatively. Any volunteers?
