Planet / Features
Ten Top Tips for Low Carbon Lifestyles
1. Insulate
Insulate your home by fitting loft insulation, draft proofing, secondary or double glazing, wall and floor installation (in order of cost and effectiveness).
is needed now More than ever
2. Travel Share
Use shared transport. Buses, trains and full cars all emit a quarter of the emissions of a solo car journey.
3. Eat Local
Eat organic, local food – ideally from small scale organic farms and gardens because agricultural methods can produce even more emissions than transport.
4. Holiday
Holiday by ground transport – due to radiative forcing, high altitude emissions are around three times more damaging. Travelling abroad by ship and train is also much more fun!
5. Optimise your travel
Give yourself time to plan your journeys and decide if they can be taken together. You will spend more time per trip but travel less often. This reduces tedious time in transit and creates more hours to do the things you really enjoy.
6. Purchase quality products
Purchase quality, long-lasting products. Cheap and quality products have a similar carbon footprint in manufacture. Therefore if one product lasts five times longer than another it accounts for one fifth of the emissions over its life span. High quality products improve your quality of life.
7. Live together!
Get a lodger, rent a room or share a house. Share your annual fuel bills to radically cut your carbon footprint and save lots of money. And money is time!
8. Cook from scratch
Cooking can be one of the most relaxing times of the day. Listen to music, take in a good podcast or talk to a friend when cooking to make it fun. Cooking this way involves far less refrigeration, processing and packaging. It also tastes 10 times nicer!
9. Take Staycations
Holiday in your home country. It’s nice to get away in the winter, but in the summer, home may be the best place in the world! Getting to know your own country can be, surprisingly, even more interesting.
10. Double up!
The perfect pair of shoes is good for home and work. The perfect bicycle can be used on and off road. The perfect coat is good for rain and shine. Versatile products can take longer to find, but once we have them, they serve multiple purposes and save physical and mental space as well as embodied energy.
Mukti Mitchell is Director of the award-winning CosyHome Company which retrofits energy saving insulations for period properties. The author of The Guide to Low Carbon Lifestyles and five highly commended online carbon calculators, he has been leading a low carbon lifestyle for 15 years. He famously sailed around Britain in a zero-emission microyacht, and is an acclaimed writer and speaker on low carbon living.