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Consultancy
Green Living will be offering various consultancy services for either the individual homeowner or the small business owner:
- ✿ carbon foot-printing
- ✿ impact assessment studies
- ✿ planning and building advice
- ✿ hip (and next one up)
- ✿ energy assessment (for HIPS)
We are also happy to recommend individual specialists in their chosen fields, such as:
Cat’s Corner
What the expert has to say....
Carbon Footprining
What is a Carbon Footprint?
A carbon footprint is a simple concept - it is the total mass of carbon dioxide emitted as a consequence of a person's activities over a year. The figure is commonly cited in kilogrammes per year, or tonnes per year, depending on how large the number is.
A carbon footprint is a vital tool for helping reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and is an essential step on the way to a low carbon economy.
Because so many different activities contribute to an individual's carbon footprint, it is important to understand what has been measured when a figure is quoted. Without this understanding, it is difficult to compare footprints. For this reason you should also give a breakdown, as I have done below.
There is one other complication - carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Among others, methane is the most significant gas, and is produced by landfill and cattle farming, to name but two. This has been taken into account for food consumption and waste production.
To work your yearly Carbon Footprint, measure these aspects of your lifestyle:
- ✿ Electricity, gas and water consumption
- ✿ Distance commuted, including mode of transport
- ✿ Leisure journeys, including flights
- ✿ Where you buy your food from
- ✿ The amount of waste you produce that cannot be recycled.
For gas and electricity these figures were calculated from actual meter readings. For travel to and from work, estimate the number of journeys made and their distance, then scale that up by the amount of CO2 emitted for that mode of transport. Use a similar approach for calculating the impact of leisure journeys.
Some figures are difficult to calculate directly, as they represent embodied energy, and hence embodied CO2. For instance, when buying food from a supermarket you may not travel any further than your local shops, but the food is likely to have been freighted up and down the country (one-third of lorries on the motorways are carrying food for supermarkets!).
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