WHAT’S YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT?

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What’s my carbon footprint? It’s something many of us want to know—what can I do? How much difference will it make if I change a light bulb, or leave the car at home?

Now that the governments of Canada are declaring commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we all need to play our part. But which part? And how can I calculate my emissions?

It’s quite simple, really. There are six main ways that we contribute to global warming:

(1) Driving
(2) Flying
(3) The energy we use in our homes
(4) The wastes we send to the landfill
(5) The stuff we buy
(6) The food we eat.

Do you want to know how much CO2 your family produced last year? Get yourself a notepad, and we’ll start.

1. Driving
Each litre of gas produces 2.34 kg of CO2. If your car does 25 mpg (9 km per litre), and you drove 15,000 km last year, you used 1,667 litres of gas, which produced 3900 kg of CO2 – that’s almost 4 tonnes. So take an odometer reading, estimate your car’s fuel efficiency, and do the maths.

Every litre you don’t burn (every 9 km you don’t drive) will save 2.34 kg. Public transport produces 60 grams of CO2 per km, a quarter the amount of driving your own car. For cycling, it’s a healthy zero.

2. Flying
If you go to www.offsetters.ca, you can calculate the CO2 for each flight. Toronto to Victoria return is 750 kg (I believe this is too low; it’s closer to 2 tonnes). You can do the same at www.terrapass.com. For the year ahead, ask “Is this flight really necessary? Could I do this meeting by teleconferencing? Could we holiday closer to home?”

3a. Home Energy – Electricity
You can save electricity by turning off the lights, and switching to compact fluorescent bulbs and more efficient appliances. If you replace 18 incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, you will reduce your CO2 by 5600 kg over the 10-year life of the bulbs – 560 kg a year, or 30 kg per bulb. For insights into the best buys for all things green, go to www.thegreenguide.com and dig in. An old, inefficient fridge in a basement might use 1000 kwh a year, so if you unplug it, you will reduce your annual emissions by 800 kg of CO2, a year depending on how much coal and gas is used to generate electricity.

3b. Home Energy– Oil
If you heat your home with oil, find your fuel bills, and calculate your emissions at 2.6 kg of CO2 per litre. An average single family home uses 3000 litres of oil a year, producing 7.8 tonnes of CO2. If you make your home 25% more efficient, you’ll save 2 tonnes. In BC, if you use Columbia Fuels BioHeat with its 20% biodiesel mix, you’ll reduce your CO2 by 16%, saving 1.25 tonnes a year.

3c. Home Energy– Gas
If you use gas for cooking or heating, find your gas bill, and calculate it at 52 kg of CO2 per gigajoule. (Propane is 63 kg per GJ).

4. The Waste We Landfill
In the landfill, most waste breaks down, releasing methane gas, which is another powerful greenhouse gas. Here in Victoria, the CRD captures the methane and uses it to generate carbon-neutral electricity, which should be done everywhere. Every time you recycle, however, the materials can be used again, which saves a lot of energy. So do whatever you can to recycle more.

5. The Stuff We Buy
Almost everything we buy has a carbon footprint. The materials were harvested or mined, and then it was manufactured, packaged, and shipped to the store. Imported beer, when there are great locally brewed ales, makes no sense. You are using carbon fuels to ship flavoured water from Germany or wherever.

6. The Food We Eat
Imported food has a far higher carbon footprint than locally grown food. Locally grown organic food is best, since organic soil stores far more carbon than chemically pumped soil. Beef has a high carbon footprint, since cows burp methane. An average meat diet produces 1.5 tonnes more CO2 a year than a vegan diet.

7. Offsetting
When you have calculated your emissions, you can offset them to become “carbon neutral” by investing in a project (around $12 per tonne) which will reduce the same amount of CO2 somewhere else. I use the Solar Electric Light Fund (www.self.org). There’s also:
www.offsetters.ca
www.cleanairpass.com
www.carboncounter.org
www.carbonbalanced.org

Good luck! It’s an important process.

Guy Dauncey is an author, speaker and consultant who specializes in developing a positive vision of a sustainable future, and translating that vision into action. www.earthfuture.com