• Your Carbon Footprint
• Reducing Your Footprint
• Why Offset?
• Become Carbon Neutral
• Calculators

Reducing Your Footprint

There are some simple methods you can adopt to improve your energy efficiency and reduce your carbon footprint.

At Home

Change your household routine:

• Don't leave anything on standby: electrical appliances left on standby still use up to 20% of the energy normally used when fully operative
• Unplug your charger: electrical chargers still use energy when they are connected to the electricity mains, even when they are no longer connected to the device.
• Boiling the kettle: try to ensure you only have the amount of water in the kettle that you need. Boiling too much water uses unnecessary energy.
• Turn the thermostat down by 1 degree: as slight a reduction as this in your central heating can save vast amounts of energy, not to mention reducing your heating bill by up to as much as 10%
• Switch off all unnecessary lights
• Use energy efficient light bulbs; they give out the same amount of light but run on a third of the energy and last up to 15 times longer.
• Make sure your washing machines and dishwashers are full before putting them on. A half filled machine uses the same energy as a full one. 

• Insulate: Make sure your home is properly insulated. This means ensuring your attic and cavity walls are well insulated. Also check your windows and doors are draft proof and that your boiler has a lagging jacket. The effective insulation of your home will ensure that you only use the energy that you need to run your home. Any potential short-term costs will be more than compensated for from the savings in your heating bills, as well as helping to reduce your carbon footprint.
• Switch your energy source: By switching to a renewable energy source such as solar power or wood chip pellets you can do your part to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and further release of CO2 into the atmosphere. Government incentives can help you realise dramatic savings over conventional energy sources. For further information on switching energy sources check out Sustainable Energy Ireland.

In addition to the above efficiencies you can offset your remaining carbon footprint.

Your Car

Cars are a major source of carbon emissions as they are traditionally run on fossil fuels in the form of petrol or diesel. Political intervention, innovative technology as well as increased availability of alternative fuels, such as bio-ethanol and bio-diesel will make a dramatic difference to car emissions in the future. Unfortunately, at present, problems with availability and affordability of these alternative fuels mean it will probably be many years before any notable reduction in the CO2 emissions are realised. 

In the mean time there are a number of steps you can take to help reduce CO2 emissions. 

• Where possible: Walk, Run, Cycle, Use public transport.
• Join or start a Car pool.
• Check your tyre pressure - a car with correctly inflated tyres is more fuel-efficient.
• Choose a more fuel-efficient car - or if possible choose a hybrid or bio-fuel model

Air Travel

Air travel is widely recognised as a major polluter due to the vast amounts of fossil fuel aircrafts burn in a single journey. Next time you are about to book a flight ask yourself is it really necessary – could getting the train be just as convenient? If you decide to fly, you can neutralise the carbon footprint caused by your flight by offsetting.  Click Here

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