Pledges<\/h5>\n\n- Use a 100% green energy provider<\/li>\n
- Fit solar panels and house batteries to minimize electricity bills and feed back into the grid<\/li>\n
- Cut electricity usage<\/li>\n
- Insulate the house and sheds to retain heat in winter and deflect it in summer<\/li>\n
- Lower the heating by one degree<\/li>\n
- No more gas, fit a groundsource or airsource heat pump<\/li>\n
- No more woodburner<\/li>\n
- Minimize water useage<\/li>\n
- Recycle water via a greywater system<\/li>\n
- Collect and store rainwater for use in the garden<\/li>\n
- Create our own compost<\/li>\n
- Create habitats for wildlife<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/div>\n
Electricity<\/h5>\n
The first thing on the hit list for the house is to go fully green on electricity. The first step on this I took a couple of years ago when I switched to Octopus Energy<\/a>, a green energy supplier who only provides their electricity from renewable sources. They are slightly more expensive than non-renewable suppliers at 28.5p per KWh (May 2022) due to the renewable electricity currently being more expensive to generate vs fossil fuels and nuclear.<\/p>\nMore recently I have had solar panels professionally fitted to the roof of our house and also DIY fitted more to more various sheds using second hand panels I purchased from ebay. In all there are 10KW of panels which during the summer is sufficient during the day to power the house and return into the grid enough for a further 6 houses. At night the house runs from batteries that are changed from the panels during the day.<\/p>\n
The other key part of my electrricity strategy is to reduce our useage which is often as simple as turning things off when not in use and can save a surprising amount.<\/p>\n
Heating<\/h5>\n
Heating is a tricky one as my house was built in 1910 and as such fairly poorly insulated. This will be the first area to focus on as keeping the heat in is a precursor to upgrading the heating system. Once that is achieved I intend to move away from gas central heating and have a ground or air source heat pump fitted which pull heat into the house from the surrounding environment in a way not dissimilar to a fridge running in reverse.<\/p>\n
Another quick win (and one that will involve significant battle with the rest of the family) is to reduce the thermostat by one degree. In our case from 19C down to 18C.\u00a0 Just doing this saves 13% in your gas usage, or around 1,530KWH\/250KG CO2\u00a0<\/sub>for an average house.<\/p>\nThe final change will be to stop using the wood burner and to keep it only for emergencies if the central heating fails.\u00a0 Whilst strictly speaking a carbon neutral form of heating (since new trees growing offset the burning of wood), wood burners create significant emissions, specifically the catchily named PM2.5 particle which can be hugely dangerous to lungs. In London wood-burners account for upto 31% of particule pollution<\/p>\n
Water<\/h5>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/DrzSPORX0AANAKn-460x460.jpg\")
Of all the utilities we have, water is our must precious and yet the one we waste most readily. A lot of work goes into making water fit for drinking and ironically of course, a lot of what we produce is literally flushed down the toilet. The footprint of producing a litre of water is around 0.3g of CO2 <\/sub>and the impact of processing sewerage is around 0.5g CO2 <\/sub>per litre.\u00a0 Whilst this may not sound a lot but on average we each use 142 litres a day which means for a family of 4, a whopping 207,320 litres per year equivilent to 166KG of CO2.<\/p>\nThe first item I’ve been tackling is to ensure there are no leaks as whilst a simple drip might not seem like a much, over the course of a year a drip can waste over 6,000l of water which if you are on a metre will cost you around \u00a316.94 per year.<\/p>\n
The next step will be to tackle the toilet and reduce the amount of water per flush. Most of cisterns are fairly modern already so don’t require change, but we still have one ‘lovely’ 1970’s\u00a0 vibrant blue toilet with a monster cistern. Folklore says putting a brick in is a useful way to reduce the capacity, but bricks tend to break up when left in water so I will be using glass jars filled with water.<\/p>\n
The final step will involve some heavier engineering, a grey water system. Grey water systems collect your shower\/bath water and reuses it to flush toilets. This creates a really useful saving in water, but does require the fitting of a sealed tank to collect and store the water.<\/p>\n
Garden<\/h5>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/hedgehog-460x306.jpg\")
The final step around the home will be to make the garden sustainable. My wife, Claire,\u00a0 is a keen gardener and has an insatiable appetite for compost for her plants. Compost is a bit of sustainability disaster with a significant percentage in the UK containing peat. Peat is a problem as it retains significant amounts of CO2<\/sub> and the act of digging peat causes not only the peat that is removed to start releasing CO2<\/sub> but also the damaged bogs, fenns and marches accelerate in releasing CO2<\/sub> resulting in a double environmental hit. Thankfully a ban is finally coming into force in 2024.<\/p>\nThe good news is I have a solution and that comes in the form of the rather large mountain of pig crap that built up at the end of the garden from my two pets, Marmie and Hedgehog. The pigs have now found new owners with a lot more land and nature has done it’s job with the poop and all the other garden waste and created a near lifetimes supply of lovely rich compost.<\/p>\n
(Note to anyone thinking of getting pigs, don’t do it! I was very drunk when I committed to the idea and they literally will destroy your garden, deliciously cute and entertaining though they are!)<\/p>\n
I will also be creating more wildlife friendly habitats and feeding stations to support the wider variety of birds, bugs, amphibians and furry creatures and reptiles that occupy the garden.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nFood<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n\n- Implement 1 meat free day and 2 white meat only days<\/li>\n
- Try to buy locally produced produce<\/li>\n
- Create a sustainable-calorie controlled diet<\/li>\n
- Plan meals to minimize waste<\/li>\n
- Minimize the amount of processed foods<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/div>\n
As my frame will atest to, I am quite a big fan of food and often I don’t make the best food choices. I’m a keen cook and carnivorous in nature and tend to snack often, far too regularly raiding the biscuit barrel. With the adaption to a more sustainable life, the challenge presented is that to find the right choices that balance of whats best for you and whats best for the planet.<\/p>\n
The UK isn’t great at food self-sufficiency with around 50% of our food being imported compared with 20% for the US and 11% in France.\u00a0 This creates a lot of ‘food miles’, the distance food has to travel from farm to fork which creates emissions particuarly for fresh foods which are often transported by air.<\/p>\n
Different forms of argiculture also have significantly different levels of environmental impact based on the amounts of fertilisers, water and pesticides for plants and feed, medicines and digestive efficiency for animals.<\/p>\n
The following chart shows the relative impact of the main food types by kcal of energy it provides:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/carbon-intensity-460x272.png\")
<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly by some significant margin, red meat such as beef and lamb have a significant impact making white meats a much better protein option and comparable to fruit and vegatables.<\/p>\n
Finally the processing for food can have a significantly negative impact with food often losing nuturitional quality, adding in preservatives and flavour enhancers, whilst increasing the amount of plastic packaging.<\/p>\n
In all, food production contributes around 20% of the UKs emissions and so has a significant impact on our carbon footprints.<\/p>\n
Taking all that together with my current waistline into account I have decided to reform my eating and base it around a combination of sustainability impact and calories. Surprisingly I’ve not yet been able to find a pragmatic diet that I would be able to stick to, that combines these qualities and so I’m going to have to get all Dr Atkins and create my own diet system. To start with I plan to have a meat free day and 2 days that are white meat (aka chjicken) only. I’ll also focus on trying to buy locally produced food and minimize processed foods.<\/p>\n
\nTravel<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n\n- Minimize flying, only one trip abroad per year and triple offset<\/li>\n
- No more petrol, electric cars only<\/li>\n
- Use the train instead of flying where possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/div>\n
Our household is relatively light on travel. We drive around 15,000 miles a year split across our two cars, and fly once or twice a year within europe. We switched to electric cars last year which reduced our annual emissions by around 2.8 tonnes. With the addition of the solar panels on the house on a sunny day we are able to charge up a car using our excess electricity.<\/p>\n
Flying is a major contribution to emissions (beating gravity takes a lot of energy!) and accounts for 17% of all travel CO2<\/sub>. To limit our impact we plan to use train instead of plane whereever practical and when we do fly to triple offset the flight so that not only do we atone for the act of flying, but also for the production cost of the aircraft and the impact of the airports.<\/p>\n
\nStuff<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n\n- Repair as much as possible<\/li>\n
- Share my stuff<\/li>\n
- Buy second hand where possible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/div>\n
Almost all of us love stuff, in fact many of us are stuff addicts. Shops, Amazon, ebay et al literally exist to feed our addiction. Browse, click and its with you in hours. Gadgets, tools, clothing, ornaments and other assorted goodies fill our houses, many of which have only occassional use. Probably more than 50% of our stuff is not really needed but it makes us feel good (if briefly) to buy and own it. Worse still our stuff has become disposable, rarely do we mend it, if its broken or we’ve grown tired of it, it gets tossed in the bin.<\/p>\n
Thankfully lots of services have started to spring up in recent years to help us sell, donate and gift the things we no longer need, but I’d wager plenty of perfectly good stuff still goes into landfill.<\/p>\n
Businesses too must change their ways, many produce products that are unservicable, Apple I’m looking at you, meaning repair is made difficult by design. Other businesses pander to the disposable ecomony by cheaply producing low quality, short lifespan products.<\/p>\n
None of this can continue in a sustainable world. The perception and reality of a products value must increase so that what we produce pays of its sustainability debt before it is returned to the recycling stream.<\/p>\n
Now I am probably one of the worst examples of a stuff addict, I hoard and I hoard terribly. However, I am comitted to change and here is what I intend to do. First off, I am going to repair rather than replace and any products I buy need to be maintainable. The next step is to share my stuff as far too much of it sits doing nothing the whole time. What is the point of something doing nothing, and thus I figure if anyone wants to borrow it, I’ll lend it to them. The final step is to move to buying as much as possible second hand and take advantage of everyone elses vast array of old stuff looking for a new owner.<\/p>\n
\nSoul<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n\n- Take breaks<\/li>\n
- Exercise<\/li>\n
- Practice mindfulness<\/li>\n
- Create hobby time<\/li>\n
- Do more creative stuff<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/go-your-own-way-276x460.jpg\")
The final part of my sustainable plan is to nurish my soul. I’m a pretty full-on person and tend to approach everything in life with excess enthusiam, speed and obsession. This comes at a price and as a result I am no stranger to visits from the black dog (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XiCrniLQGYc<\/a>)\u00a0 from time to time.\u00a0 For my sustainability journey to succeed, a key component has to be a sustainable soul for without this it will be all too easy to slip into the old ways and take the easy path. Of all the changes, this is probably the hardest as it involves profound adjustments to the core habits of a lifetime.<\/p>\nThe first change is to take breaks during my working day. Often, particuarly when I’m working from home, I’ll start work at 8am and barely leave my desk until dinner time with only a rather unhealthy snack for lunch.\u00a0 This is definitely not good for the body as my daily step counts are sometimes as low as 500 steps in the day, most of which are my trips from my desk chair to the biscuit jar and back again. To address this I’m going to ensure I take a proper lunch break plus a couple of smaller screen breaks during the day.<\/p>\n
Next up is my nemisis, exercise. I’ve never really enjoyed exercise and this is very much reflected in my aging physique. This one is going to be a bit of a journey of\u00a0 finding something that is fun but also effective at building up my strength and endurance. Hopefully such a thing exists!<\/p>\n
Along with fixing the body comes fixing the mind and for this, mindfulness is my friend. I’ve always found it tremendously effective at calming my noisy brain and even in the darkest of days it provides a peaceful break. I use the HeadSpace app<\/a> and it only takes 5-10 minutes a day which is a tiny investment of time for a really positive reward.<\/p>\nThe last piece of the puzzle is to make sure I make the time for my hobbies by carving out at least 30 minutes a day. I love making stuff be it electronic creations, DIY\u00a0 builds, or arty oddities. When I get busy at work I tend to neglect my hobbies as work stress tends to leave you tired and by creating dedicated time each day means I can give myself a reward each day.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/p>\n
\n- Energy saving through small changes in household behaviour: https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/128720\/6923-how-much-energy-could-be-saved-by-making-small-cha.pdf<\/a><\/li>\n
- Wood burners and the environment:
\nhttps:\/\/www.thegreenage.co.uk\/are-wood-burners-bad-for-the-environment\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having offset my homes current carbon footprint, now it’s time to plan how to make long term changes for the better and achieve the net-zero goal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1853,"featured_media":27676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","cgt_type":[],"class_list":["post-27204","cgt","type-cgt","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","post","post-with-thumbnail","post-with-thumbnail-large"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt\/27204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cgt"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27204"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt\/27204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28171,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt\/27204\/revisions\/28171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cgt_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt_type?post=27204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/div>\n
Electricity<\/h5>\n
The first thing on the hit list for the house is to go fully green on electricity. The first step on this I took a couple of years ago when I switched to Octopus Energy<\/a>, a green energy supplier who only provides their electricity from renewable sources. They are slightly more expensive than non-renewable suppliers at 28.5p per KWh (May 2022) due to the renewable electricity currently being more expensive to generate vs fossil fuels and nuclear.<\/p>\n More recently I have had solar panels professionally fitted to the roof of our house and also DIY fitted more to more various sheds using second hand panels I purchased from ebay. In all there are 10KW of panels which during the summer is sufficient during the day to power the house and return into the grid enough for a further 6 houses. At night the house runs from batteries that are changed from the panels during the day.<\/p>\n The other key part of my electrricity strategy is to reduce our useage which is often as simple as turning things off when not in use and can save a surprising amount.<\/p>\n Heating is a tricky one as my house was built in 1910 and as such fairly poorly insulated. This will be the first area to focus on as keeping the heat in is a precursor to upgrading the heating system. Once that is achieved I intend to move away from gas central heating and have a ground or air source heat pump fitted which pull heat into the house from the surrounding environment in a way not dissimilar to a fridge running in reverse.<\/p>\n Another quick win (and one that will involve significant battle with the rest of the family) is to reduce the thermostat by one degree. In our case from 19C down to 18C.\u00a0 Just doing this saves 13% in your gas usage, or around 1,530KWH\/250KG CO2\u00a0<\/sub>for an average house.<\/p>\n The final change will be to stop using the wood burner and to keep it only for emergencies if the central heating fails.\u00a0 Whilst strictly speaking a carbon neutral form of heating (since new trees growing offset the burning of wood), wood burners create significant emissions, specifically the catchily named PM2.5 particle which can be hugely dangerous to lungs. In London wood-burners account for upto 31% of particule pollution<\/p>\n The first item I’ve been tackling is to ensure there are no leaks as whilst a simple drip might not seem like a much, over the course of a year a drip can waste over 6,000l of water which if you are on a metre will cost you around \u00a316.94 per year.<\/p>\n The next step will be to tackle the toilet and reduce the amount of water per flush. Most of cisterns are fairly modern already so don’t require change, but we still have one ‘lovely’ 1970’s\u00a0 vibrant blue toilet with a monster cistern. Folklore says putting a brick in is a useful way to reduce the capacity, but bricks tend to break up when left in water so I will be using glass jars filled with water.<\/p>\n The final step will involve some heavier engineering, a grey water system. Grey water systems collect your shower\/bath water and reuses it to flush toilets. This creates a really useful saving in water, but does require the fitting of a sealed tank to collect and store the water.<\/p>\n The good news is I have a solution and that comes in the form of the rather large mountain of pig crap that built up at the end of the garden from my two pets, Marmie and Hedgehog. The pigs have now found new owners with a lot more land and nature has done it’s job with the poop and all the other garden waste and created a near lifetimes supply of lovely rich compost.<\/p>\n (Note to anyone thinking of getting pigs, don’t do it! I was very drunk when I committed to the idea and they literally will destroy your garden, deliciously cute and entertaining though they are!)<\/p>\n I will also be creating more wildlife friendly habitats and feeding stations to support the wider variety of birds, bugs, amphibians and furry creatures and reptiles that occupy the garden.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n As my frame will atest to, I am quite a big fan of food and often I don’t make the best food choices. I’m a keen cook and carnivorous in nature and tend to snack often, far too regularly raiding the biscuit barrel. With the adaption to a more sustainable life, the challenge presented is that to find the right choices that balance of whats best for you and whats best for the planet.<\/p>\n The UK isn’t great at food self-sufficiency with around 50% of our food being imported compared with 20% for the US and 11% in France.\u00a0 This creates a lot of ‘food miles’, the distance food has to travel from farm to fork which creates emissions particuarly for fresh foods which are often transported by air.<\/p>\n Different forms of argiculture also have significantly different levels of environmental impact based on the amounts of fertilisers, water and pesticides for plants and feed, medicines and digestive efficiency for animals.<\/p>\n The following chart shows the relative impact of the main food types by kcal of energy it provides:<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly by some significant margin, red meat such as beef and lamb have a significant impact making white meats a much better protein option and comparable to fruit and vegatables.<\/p>\n Finally the processing for food can have a significantly negative impact with food often losing nuturitional quality, adding in preservatives and flavour enhancers, whilst increasing the amount of plastic packaging.<\/p>\n In all, food production contributes around 20% of the UKs emissions and so has a significant impact on our carbon footprints.<\/p>\n Taking all that together with my current waistline into account I have decided to reform my eating and base it around a combination of sustainability impact and calories. Surprisingly I’ve not yet been able to find a pragmatic diet that I would be able to stick to, that combines these qualities and so I’m going to have to get all Dr Atkins and create my own diet system. To start with I plan to have a meat free day and 2 days that are white meat (aka chjicken) only. I’ll also focus on trying to buy locally produced food and minimize processed foods.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n Our household is relatively light on travel. We drive around 15,000 miles a year split across our two cars, and fly once or twice a year within europe. We switched to electric cars last year which reduced our annual emissions by around 2.8 tonnes. With the addition of the solar panels on the house on a sunny day we are able to charge up a car using our excess electricity.<\/p>\n Flying is a major contribution to emissions (beating gravity takes a lot of energy!) and accounts for 17% of all travel CO2<\/sub>. To limit our impact we plan to use train instead of plane whereever practical and when we do fly to triple offset the flight so that not only do we atone for the act of flying, but also for the production cost of the aircraft and the impact of the airports.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n Almost all of us love stuff, in fact many of us are stuff addicts. Shops, Amazon, ebay et al literally exist to feed our addiction. Browse, click and its with you in hours. Gadgets, tools, clothing, ornaments and other assorted goodies fill our houses, many of which have only occassional use. Probably more than 50% of our stuff is not really needed but it makes us feel good (if briefly) to buy and own it. Worse still our stuff has become disposable, rarely do we mend it, if its broken or we’ve grown tired of it, it gets tossed in the bin.<\/p>\n Thankfully lots of services have started to spring up in recent years to help us sell, donate and gift the things we no longer need, but I’d wager plenty of perfectly good stuff still goes into landfill.<\/p>\n Businesses too must change their ways, many produce products that are unservicable, Apple I’m looking at you, meaning repair is made difficult by design. Other businesses pander to the disposable ecomony by cheaply producing low quality, short lifespan products.<\/p>\n None of this can continue in a sustainable world. The perception and reality of a products value must increase so that what we produce pays of its sustainability debt before it is returned to the recycling stream.<\/p>\n Now I am probably one of the worst examples of a stuff addict, I hoard and I hoard terribly. However, I am comitted to change and here is what I intend to do. First off, I am going to repair rather than replace and any products I buy need to be maintainable. The next step is to share my stuff as far too much of it sits doing nothing the whole time. What is the point of something doing nothing, and thus I figure if anyone wants to borrow it, I’ll lend it to them. The final step is to move to buying as much as possible second hand and take advantage of everyone elses vast array of old stuff looking for a new owner.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n The first change is to take breaks during my working day. Often, particuarly when I’m working from home, I’ll start work at 8am and barely leave my desk until dinner time with only a rather unhealthy snack for lunch.\u00a0 This is definitely not good for the body as my daily step counts are sometimes as low as 500 steps in the day, most of which are my trips from my desk chair to the biscuit jar and back again. To address this I’m going to ensure I take a proper lunch break plus a couple of smaller screen breaks during the day.<\/p>\n Next up is my nemisis, exercise. I’ve never really enjoyed exercise and this is very much reflected in my aging physique. This one is going to be a bit of a journey of\u00a0 finding something that is fun but also effective at building up my strength and endurance. Hopefully such a thing exists!<\/p>\n Along with fixing the body comes fixing the mind and for this, mindfulness is my friend. I’ve always found it tremendously effective at calming my noisy brain and even in the darkest of days it provides a peaceful break. I use the HeadSpace app<\/a> and it only takes 5-10 minutes a day which is a tiny investment of time for a really positive reward.<\/p>\n The last piece of the puzzle is to make sure I make the time for my hobbies by carving out at least 30 minutes a day. I love making stuff be it electronic creations, DIY\u00a0 builds, or arty oddities. When I get busy at work I tend to neglect my hobbies as work stress tends to leave you tired and by creating dedicated time each day means I can give myself a reward each day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sources:<\/p>\n Having offset my homes current carbon footprint, now it’s time to plan how to make long term changes for the better and achieve the net-zero goal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1853,"featured_media":27676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","cgt_type":[],"class_list":["post-27204","cgt","type-cgt","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","post","post-with-thumbnail","post-with-thumbnail-large"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt\/27204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cgt"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27204"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt\/27204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28171,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt\/27204\/revisions\/28171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cgt_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intranet-old.colart.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cgt_type?post=27204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Heating<\/h5>\n
Water<\/h5>\n
Of all the utilities we have, water is our must precious and yet the one we waste most readily. A lot of work goes into making water fit for drinking and ironically of course, a lot of what we produce is literally flushed down the toilet. The footprint of producing a litre of water is around 0.3g of CO2 <\/sub>and the impact of processing sewerage is around 0.5g CO2 <\/sub>per litre.\u00a0 Whilst this may not sound a lot but on average we each use 142 litres a day which means for a family of 4, a whopping 207,320 litres per year equivilent to 166KG of CO2.<\/p>\nGarden<\/h5>\n
The final step around the home will be to make the garden sustainable. My wife, Claire,\u00a0 is a keen gardener and has an insatiable appetite for compost for her plants. Compost is a bit of sustainability disaster with a significant percentage in the UK containing peat. Peat is a problem as it retains significant amounts of CO2<\/sub> and the act of digging peat causes not only the peat that is removed to start releasing CO2<\/sub> but also the damaged bogs, fenns and marches accelerate in releasing CO2<\/sub> resulting in a double environmental hit. Thankfully a ban is finally coming into force in 2024.<\/p>\n
\nFood<\/h2>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nTravel<\/h2>\n
\n
\nStuff<\/h2>\n
\n
\nSoul<\/h2>\n
\n
The final part of my sustainable plan is to nurish my soul. I’m a pretty full-on person and tend to approach everything in life with excess enthusiam, speed and obsession. This comes at a price and as a result I am no stranger to visits from the black dog (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XiCrniLQGYc<\/a>)\u00a0 from time to time.\u00a0 For my sustainability journey to succeed, a key component has to be a sustainable soul for without this it will be all too easy to slip into the old ways and take the easy path. Of all the changes, this is probably the hardest as it involves profound adjustments to the core habits of a lifetime.<\/p>\n
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\nhttps:\/\/www.thegreenage.co.uk\/are-wood-burners-bad-for-the-environment\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"