Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 77 total)
  • How environmentally friendly are you?
  • BlindMelon
    Free Member

    Just wonder how environmentally friendy you consider yourself to be. I do all the usual recycling, short trips walk/bike etc but other than that probably not much more. I appreciate that large organisations need to change more than individuals but I feel that I could be doing more.
    So what stuff to you do that you consider to be better for the environment?

    binners
    Full Member

    I’ve recently stopped slashing and burning rain forest in order to breed beef cows for Macdonalds

    You can **** right off if you expect me to close down my leaky nuclear reactor too. I’ve done my ****ing bit, George ****ing Monbiot!

    Cougar
    Full Member

    I’m “Green Champion” at our office at work.

    For what difference that makes.

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    rossi46
    Free Member

    I dont have a car, so i’ve done my bit.

    Oooops, better go switch the lights off in the hallway. Shall i stop farting too?

    ade
    Free Member

    I haven’t taken a plane flight (other than two unavoidable work trips) since 2006.

    <shameless plug>We made this ecological footprint calculator that gives you a bit of a simplified rating of your green-ness</shameless plug>. I scored about 1.6.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    No car, don’t buy new consumer products often, don#t buy food that has been flown, cycle / walk most places.

    fly short haul every couple of years, live in a hard to heat house.

    Usual mixed bag. Better than the average in the UK by a long way, still not sustainable probably

    LHS
    Free Member

    I do everything I can regarding eco friendly cleaning products, recycling, walk and cycle whereever I can, super insulated house, solar panels on roof and much more.

    The problem is though that I average 4 transatlantic flights a month which pretty much nulls and voids everything else I do. 😕

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    Work from home.
    Use the car once a month at most (wife once a week).
    Use the train on the odd occasion I have to travel long distance.
    Rarely fly.
    Log burner for bulk of heating (local wood).
    All LED/low energy lighting.
    Massively insulated house.
    I prefer to salvage/restore than buy new.

    I am an utter hypocrite though. Despite all my hippy credentials I couldn’t care less about the environment.

    nickjb
    Free Member

    I average 4 transatlantic flights a month which pretty much nulls and voids everything else I do

    Probably by a factor of 1000. I love to travel but even with only a couple of trips by air recently its over one third of my carbon footprint.

    joao3v16
    Free Member

    I endeavour to keep a massive pile of old car tyres burning furiously

    donsimon
    Free Member

    Only use the air conditioning when it gets really hot, like 25ºC+.
    Make sure I’m getting the best triple glazing available by visiting as many showrooms as possible, too many cowboys on the internet.
    Insulating the house properly, the cost of running all this technology is getting ridiculous and one has to make savings where one can.
    Every little helps

    yossarian
    Free Member

    I knit my own yoghurt

    binners
    Full Member

    I’m Trudy Styler

    Eco Warri… errr?

    scuzz
    Free Member

    I hold my breath every so often

    TheFlyingOx
    Full Member

    + Got rid of my car and motorbike.
    + Make all my personal journey by train or cycle.
    + The majority of my work is in an environmental monitoring capacity.

    – I’m racking up about 90,000 airmiles in the next 4 months, very possibly more.

    I think my carbon footprint is visible from space.

    aracer
    Free Member

    We made this ecological footprint calculator that gives you a bit of a simplified rating of your green-ness

    Hmm – scored 2.03, but it says 34% of my impact is stuff, despite selecting the lowest impact option for all of those apart from DIY tools. Does £60-£70 of tools really have that much impact?

    Then again, it didn’t ask about expenditure on sports kit 😉

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    I scored 1.87 onthat calculator and high on stuff even tho like aracer it was only diy tools

    Rorschach
    Free Member

    I’ve never punched an endangered species….

    miketually
    Free Member

    I average 4 transatlantic flights a month which pretty much nulls and voids everything else I do

    If they’re for work, they’re your employer’s problem not yours. (Though, you might be able to suggest ways of avoiding them?)

    Very

    I will decompose just like the rest of you.

    rightplacerighttime
    Free Member

    1.77

    And we actually try quite hard to make the right environmental choices.

    I suspect that this calculator won’t produce a figure lower than 1 (less than one earth required to support everyone at this level of consumption) unless you are vegetarian and probably have no car.

    I am hardly reassured by the knowledge that there are a lot of people in India and Africa who fall into that category.

    cheers_drive
    Full Member

    All of our rubbish is recycled or composted apart from plastic films.
    Grow my own veg in summer
    I try to avoid food that is flown
    I often work from home

    Unfortunately I do an average of 3 flights a month with work which destroys all that.

    psling
    Free Member

    I’m trying to reduce the amount of methane I produce but I’m feeling a bit bloated as a result 😳

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    I am only mildly reassured by the knowledge that there are a lot of people in India and Africa who fall into that category.

    Adding more people that don’t use much to reduce average consumption! Genius!

    Ahhh… hang on… that won’t work.

    BlindMelon
    Free Member

    2.58 on the calc here – much more work required. Some good ideas at reducing the impact on this thread

    Edukator
    Free Member

    1.85 on the WWF calculator. (including Madame and a son who travels more than us)

    The calculator doesn’t take into account producing 60% more electricity than we use, doesn’t allow me to include a 13-year-old in the household, doesn’t include portion size in the meat/fish thing (we eat meat or fish everyday in moderation). Makes me count 2h of car use a week which is over double what we use (5000km/year). Doesn’t allow you to state that you live in house that is down to “passive house” energy consumption.

    In short, it assumes you are standard and to really make a difference you have to be non-standard. I played with the thing before they blocked a second attempt and it’s impossible to get to 1 unless you’re a homeless vegan. In reality a much higher level of economic activity is sustainable if we adopt a new lifestyle and technologies.

    MrSalmon
    Free Member

    + I don’t have a car (although my wife does, and uses it pretty much every day) and will take the train whenever possible
    + Not much of a consumer of products/gizmos
    + Aiming to do most trips abroad by boat/train in future where possible

    – I think my (rented) house is probably quite bad (all lights are clusters of halogens I think)
    – I have to fly for work sometimes

    So maybe a bit better than average but mixed bag like most others it seems.

    woody2000
    Full Member

    Your footprint is
    2.51 planets

    I is massive 😆

    steveh
    Full Member

    3.81 for me but heavily influenced by air travel for work (once a month in europe on average) and a lot of driving (mostly commuting). Not ideal by any means but I do what I can at home.

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    2.91 oops

    ski
    Free Member

    1.69

    Is that bad, I have no idea what 1.69 means?

    😯

    [edit]There was no option for growing your own veg either?

    LHS
    Free Member

    4.94 😳

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    i’m cleaning a large engine casing by hand, and disposing of the cleaning rags, to avoid 2cubic centimeters of non-toxic silt being washed into the drain.

    i’m a f***ing eco-warrior!

    samuri
    Free Member

    Best thing you can do is not have kids.
    or if you have some, kill them.

    All the rest of the stuff is bobbins.

    toby1
    Full Member

    I’m not having kids – so I’m a load more environmental than most of the breeders round here!

    ade
    Free Member

    A couple of footprint calculator answers:

    I suspect that this calculator won’t produce a figure lower than 1 (less than one earth required to support everyone at this level of consumption) unless you are vegetarian and probably have no car.

    It takes a lot of working through the tips at the end to get below 1, but that’s kind of the point – so much of our impact is based on the big infrastructure-level stuff that we can’t affect with our daily choices. It comes down to needing business and govt to see a public pressure to change. Sadly, in the current climate (no pun intended) that’s getting harder and harder.

    3.81 for me but heavily influenced by air travel for work (once a month in europe on average) and a lot of driving (mostly commuting). Not ideal by any means but I do what I can at home.

    Technically, work flights shouldn’t be included as they’re bound up in your employer’s footprint – they’d be passed on to the end consumer. Commuting journeys are as they’re down to how far you decide to live from work. That said, if you can influence your employer to reduce the amount of flying you have to do (video conferencing etc), then do it.

    Is that bad, I have no idea what 1.69 means?

    If everyone on the planet lived in exactly the same way as you, how many planets’ worth of productive land would we need? Worth bearing in mind that the current world population needs over one planet’s worth right now, so we’re building up an ecological debt. We (WWF) try to be constructive and positive, but there’s some scary stuff going on behind that.

    On Edukator’s comment, it’s designed to be fairly accurate for the middle of the population bell-curve – it’s about giving people an indication of their impact. Its accuracy definitely drops rapidly if you’ve got a relatively low (e.g. you, by the sounds of it) or high (e.g. celebs/billionaires) footprint. There are calculators out there that give a much more consistently accurate answer, but they take ages to fill in and need you to start entering figures from bills and petrol receipts.

    Edukator
    Free Member

    So the WWF calculator should include how many children you have or intend to have right? More than two and you add a few planets, less than two you get a bonus.

    There are calculators that are more quantative, heating with wood isn’t ecological if you get through 12m3 that has travelled 100km.

    Edukator
    Free Member

    A crossed post but unless you do enter numbers for gas, electricity, petrol, wood, red meat, how often you change your car etc. the result is going to be misleading.

    While the world population is increasing by more than the poplulation of the town I live in every week our efforts are all pretty futile anyhow. The good news is that makign an effort saves a lot of money so that’s more to spend on carbon made in Taiwan.

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    There are calculators that are more quantative, heating with wood isn’t ecological if you get through 12m3 that has travelled 100km.

    The kiln dried stuff from south america is my favourite.

    tonyg2003
    Full Member

    5.18 on the calculator 😥

    To be fair I don’t commute often or drive a huge amount, I have a relatively low impact lifestyle but +100000 miles of air travel in the last 7months (on my BA airmiles card). My UK carbon footprint is meaningless when compared to my airtravel. However business is business.

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