Low Effort Tips to Minimise Your Carbon Footprint
By Hannah Brookes
Most of us know we could all be doing more to reduce the carbon impact of our lives. Sometimes it feels overwhelming and it’s hard to know where to start. It’s confusing, and we end up flitting between taking things to the extreme, and giving up entirely when the complexity and intricacy of it all becomes too overwhelming. Here are some easy personal tips that anyone can use to reduce their carbon footprint, without making a massive change to their lifestyle. None of these need to be taken to the extreme, we all just need to do our bit to improve ourselves and keep moving in the right direction for the planet.
Reduce the amount of meat and dairy you eat
We should all know by now that reducing your personal consumption of meat and dairy is one of the easiest things we can do to substantially reduce our impact on the environment. This does not mean that you have to cut out everything straight away, or be super strict with yourself and deny yourself the food and drinks that you love. Of course, if you want to go fully vegan that is amazing, but you can make a difference simply by cutting out a few meat meals a week. Think of it as making some minor swaps and trying to see meat and dairy as more of a luxury than a necessity.
I found that a good way to move towards a more plant based diet is to focus on introducing more vegetables to your meals, perhaps cooked in a new and different way. Discovering new vegetarian or vegan recipes that you love is also a great strategy to make it feel exciting rather than restrictive. My family have recently discovered jackfruit for example (mmm a barbeque jackfruit fajita yes please!), and when we try new, exciting recipes it feels like a treat, rather than a denial of the meat meal that we could have eaten instead.
Try to eat food that is local and seasonal
Again, this does not need to be taken to the extreme. Start by doing a bit of research and try to eat foods that are currently in season and that are grown locally. This can have a substantial impact on lowering your carbon footprint. Foods that are not local have likely been flown across the world, thus increasing the carbon footprint of this food (known as it’s air miles), and food that is out of season has likely been stored in a fridge for a few months (or flown from the other side of the world where it is in season) and the energy required to power these fridges is another contributor to the carbon footprint of produce. If you live somewhere that has a fruit and veg market nearby this could be a great alternative to shopping in a supermarket.
Make lower carbon, plant based and organic choices where possible
This applies to food, but also to other household products such as laundry powder, cleaning products and toiletries. Choosing products that are more natural, less processed and contain fewer chemicals is going to have an impact on reducing your footprint. This is due to the reduced carbon resulting from the production of these items (not to mention the fact that products like this are likely to come in less plastic-heavy packaging).
Consume less single use plastic
We all know this one by now and it feels repetitive, but really, we still use SO much single use plastic that it’s worth another mention. Not only does single use plastic clog up our oceans and harm animals and plants, it also takes a lot of fossil fuel to produce, contributing further to global warming and the general destruction of the environment. There are so many simple swaps you can do to reduce your waste and your plastic consumption, usually it just requires a little forward planning and organisation (I never go anywhere without a reusable water bottle and a tote bag!).
Don’t buy into fast fashion
Not only does fast fashion promote worker exploitation and child labour, it is also extremely damaging to the environment. This is because of the huge emissions associated with the mass production and transportation of these goods. Most fast-fashion garments are not designed to last and are made with poor quality fabrics, and so quickly end up in landfill. Fast fashion items are often made with synthetic materials such as polyester, which is plastic (so made from fossil fuels) and cannot biodegrade. High quality fabrics not often used in fast fashion such as linen, cotton, wool and silk not only last longer, but are natural materials that can therefore biodegrade.
Additionally, fast fashion exacerbates our global attitude of consumerism and encourages us all to buy more than we actually need. Buying higher quality items will not only encourage you to think more about each purchase, it will also mean your clothes will likely last much longer. For a cheaper alternative closer to the cost of fast fashion you could buy second hand, from charity shops or on online sites such as Depop.
Reduce your air miles and fly less
One 10 hour flight is equivalent (in CO2 emissions) to half of the annual average carbon footprint of a person living in the UK. This means that if you took one 10 hour flight, this would account for around a third of your carbon emissions for that whole year. This is a huge amount of carbon, and is clearly something that could have a huge impact on lowering global emissions if we all tried to fly less. Since Covid-19 it seems we have all learnt to appreciate the beauty that exists in our own country – we don’t need to fly to the other side of the world to have an amazing, beautiful holiday.
If you do fly it is possible to use carbon offsetting (although the credibility of this is dubious) to mitigate the impact of the emissions, and if you can, it is always better to fly direct.
Switch to more sustainable transport methods
Following on from the last point, we can all make a difference by adjusting the way we travel on a daily basis. Choosing to lift share, cycle, walk, or take public transport when possible are ways we can all reduce our emissions, without making that much of a change to our lifestyle (not to mention it will save you money).
Reduce your water consumption
Water is an extremely precious commodity – we cannot live without it. However it is much less abundant than most of us realise, and it is a finite resource. Only a small fraction of the world’s water is freshwater (i.e. not salty like the oceans) and only around 1% of that freshwater is available to us. The rest of it is locked away in glaciers, icecaps and underground. As the National Geographic put it ‘Only 0.007 percent of the planet’s water is available to fuel and feed its 7.8 billion people’. This is why water scarcity is such a huge problem across so many areas of the world, and this is only getting worse as climate change makes droughts more and more prevalent. I am lucky enough to live in a country where water scarcity is not an issue, however this does not mean that it’s something we should take for granted. Not only is water a highly precious substance, it also requires a lot of energy to supply. The sourcing and pumping of water across the UK uses a huge amount of energy, not to mention the energy involved to heat the water we use for showers or washing up. In short, not only does reducing our water consumption prevent the unnecessary wasting of a precious resource, it also reduces our carbon footprint, as the associated energy costs of supplying water (especially hot water) go down.
Reduce your energy consumption
Lastly, reducing our energy consumption is one of the easiest things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. This could be as simple as switching to LED lights, turning appliances off when not using them, and choosing energy efficient products. You could also install a Smart Meter to properly regulate the amount of energy that your household uses each day. Being conscious of your energy use and trying to cut it down will have a positive impact on reducing your carbon footprint (and also your bills!).
I hope these tips are useful and don’t feel too repetitive. Hopefully you can use them to start adjusting some of your daily habits to create a more carbon conscious lifestyle. Are there any other easy changes we could make to reduce our carbon footprints that I haven’t mentioned here? Let me know in the comments below!