Wednesday, September 23, 2009

How to meet your 10:10 commitment

If you've signed up to 10:10, here's some guidance on how significant different actions are to the average UK citizen's carbon footprint. Just pick the right combination to add up to 10%.

Action % cut
Install whole-house biomass heating 21.7
Cut out a long haul flight (eg to the US) 13.0*
Insulate the loft from 150mm to 300mm 13.0
Switch to green electricity 13.0
Insulate your cavity walls 8.7
Install wood burner in one room 8.7
Install solar photovoltaic 8.7
Go veggie 8.7
Eat organic almost always 8.7
Upgrade to a condensing boiler 6.6
Upgrade heating controls 6.5
Upgrade to a Prius or similar car 5.7
Install solar hot water 4.3
Install thermostatic radiator valves 4.3
Turn down thermostats and tweak radiators 4.3
Car share for commuting every day 4.3
Cut out a short haul flight 4.3
Cut mileage by 1000m pa 2.9
Change all lightbulbs to CFLs 2.9
Upgrade to an A rated freezer 2.0
Work from home or cycle to work 1 day pw 1.7
Compost all green/food waste 1.7
Switch off appliances properly (ie no standby) 1.6
Upgrade to an A rated dishwasher 1.4
Insulate hot water tank 1.0
Upgrade to an A rated fridge 0.9
Draughtproofing 0.9
Seal gaps on skirting boards 0.9
Put foil behind radiators 0.9
Upgrade to an A rated washing machine 0.5
Lag hot water pipes 0.4
Defrost freezer and dust coils 0.2

The numbers have been extracted and extrapolated from Carbon Detox and How To Live A Low Carbon Life (see right hand side). The assumptions behind them are necessarily crude to keep this table simple.

* The average person doesn't take a long haul flight every year so I've had to scale this down to account for the fact that if you do, your carbon footprint is way above average.

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