How To Reduce Your Carbon Emissions Significantly

When people learn about reducing carbon emissions for the first time, they automatically resign themselves to the idea that this is an impossible or difficult undertaking. In reality though, it is actually very simple to do. All of these emissions are lifestyle-related; meaning, simple changes to the way you live every single day can make such a huge impact to the overall environmental condition. Imagine if all people in the world had the same initiative!

Below are some of the common items that individuals use at home on a regular basis. Each of them have been identified to cause lots of GHG emissions, so you need to understand how you can reduce that number.

Electricity

Electricity has come to equate with life and survival in the modern times. Without it, it is possible but difficult to survive. The same goes with others such as medicinal, business or commercial, and industrial.

But even with regular household use, the amount of electricity consumed reaches up to 4,000 units of electricity per year. Each person in that household have their own share of the responsibility for reducing carbon footprint when it comes to their usage of electricity.

Domestic Gas

The home is where the biggest consumption of gas is taking place. Thus, you need to focus on it when trying to reduce your carbon footprint. The leading form of using domestic gas is home heating. But in order to converse use of energy, make sure you choose the size most appropriate for your house and its insulation capacity to determine how much energy it will consume.

Transportation

Whether you are traveling by land or air, both modes of transportation still contribute to the total amount of carbon emission in the world. The long distance of travel is what contributes to the maximum number of emissions which very well make up for it even if you travel only twice in a year. One important tip for frequent air travelers: limit yourself to one-short haul return flight from a fuel-efficient carrier.

In terms of land travel, a car is the most common form of transportation. In the UK alone, the car to population ratio is 1:2 with each vehicle raking in at an average 9,000 miles on an annual basis. Practical reasons dictate that sharing a car is better than having one for every single member of the household. On the other hand, there should be a keen sense on not just responsible driving, but also for eco-driving to reduce the amount of fuel used and the negative impact to the environment.

Consumer Electronics

This is probably one of the most challenging factors that modern individuals will find difficult to sacrifice. A lot of people invest on modern gadgets whether for gaming, music, or communication (cellphones, laptops, netbooks, etc). These electronic gadgets are a major culprit for carbon emissions since they are made from precious metals that require a great deal of energy to become refined and ready for manufacture.

Since consumers have little control over the manufacturing end of these electronic gadgets, the best solution is to buy less of these stuff. Once you have bought a gadget, make sure to take full care of it and recycle if you can to reduce carbon footprint.

How To Reduce Carbon Footprint At Home

Even when you spend majority of your time at home, you are still producing carbon footprint. Therefore, it is important to observe measures to eliminate carbon footprint at home and improve the overall state of the environment. This explains why some people complain that the heat during summertime has gotten more intense than it used to be.

First Step

There are more problems experienced by the environment that contribute to its slow yet gradual deterioration. Everyone is to be blamed. You must therefore start to make a change right at your very own home. You must therefore take it upon yourself to monitor the carbon footprint of your home. To give you additional motivation, you must also learn how it can affect you.

To give you a bit of perspective, carbon footprint represent the overall amount of greenhouse gas emissions that your home gives off. This is measured by the level of carbon dioxide with the indoor air in your home, which explains why it is also known as CO2 footprint. But, how can you turn that around?

Use Solar Panels

This is considered as the best possible method to reduce carbon footprint. But not everyone can afford to install solar panels in their home. The most common reason being that it is very expensive.

Minimize Use of Electricity

Check your current monthly electric consumption. Then, make a goal to reduce that by as little as 10-20% the succeeding month. The amount of energy you consume is one of the biggest culprit behind carbon footprint. There are several appliances that have energy-efficient alternatives, so make sure to go for those.

You can also take practical measures such as disposing off old appliances since they consume more energy, turn off devices not in use, and provide proper insulation at home. All of these efforts are summed up in the idea of energy conservation.

Watch the Products You Use

There are several eco-friendly products in the market today. When shopping, you must then check them out to ensure that you can get more value for your money knowing that you can also protect the environment and its resources. Products such as air fresheners and pesticides must be avoided since they bring toxicity into the air and the environment. You must therefore take the time to read the labels to learn about whether it is safe for you to use.

Recycle

You must segregate your trash properly for better waste management. Choose specific containers for each type of item, such that you know which ones to dispose off and which ones are still good for recycling. If you need some help when it comes to garbage management, you can try asking for any advice or help from your home association. Having a system will make it easier for you to stick with that system.

Plant an Edible Garden

This step is not only beneficial for the environment, but also enables your family to enjoy healthy and tasty home cooked foods. It is more cost-efficient than buying your vegetables and food products from the grocery. You are also eliminating the possibility of consuming processed foods.

All of these efforts are part in an effort to reduce carbon footprint in your own home.

Components of a Simple Solar Power System

Solar or photovoltaic cells
The assembly of semiconductors and electronics or solar cells is enclosed in a photovoltaic module, more commonly known as a solar panel. Several solar panels are called solar panel array.
 
Battery
A solar panel collects and generates energy from the sun’s radiation. PV panels convert this energy to direct current electricity, a current that is produced by batteries. Although connecting a DC load directly to the solar panel is possible, batteries play an important role to a properly working photovoltaic system.

• The battery stores energy generated by the PV panels
• It stores excess energy that exceeds that of what the load requires
• The battery serves as a back-up energy source when there is no supply from the PV system

During the whole process, the battery experiences a cyclical process of charging and discharging. When it stores harvested and excess energy, the battery is charged. When the load consumes electricity, the battery is discharged. During the day, the cycle is continuous especially if the solar panels are not generating sufficient electricity for the load. As the day ends, the battery experiences continuous discharge, depending on the load and the availability of stored energy.

Regulator
A regulator is optional yet a vital equipment in a photovoltaic system. During the cyclic process, the battery is likely to become overcharged or over-discharge, a situation that shortens the batteries’ lifespan. A regulator prevents such situations from happening by regulating the batteries’ condition. It maintains a stage of charge where it monitors when the battery will be overly charge or discharge. In general, a regulator keeps the batteries in the most appropriate working conditions.


Converter/ Inverter
A converter allows the DC electricity stored into the batteries to be converted to AC or alternating current electricity, the type of energy that is used by the mains power supply. The DC/AC or direct/alternating converter is also called an inverter and is used to match the required current and voltage by the load. It is typical to experience some energy loss during electricity conversion.
 
Load
Any appliances that consumes electricity is considered a load. When choosing a load for the solar power system, it is necessary to start with a low power component before installing additional solar panels to avoid wasting of resources. PV systems are ideal for illumination as lights only consume several watts compared to bigger appliances like television, components, or computers. There are also lightings that operates on direct current electricity, allowing the use of solar power system in a low budget scale.
Solar panels, battery, regulator, converter, and load make up the solar panel system. When all of these components are installed properly, a solar power system can sustain itself for years.

Going Online To Decrease Your CO2 Footprint

Each household in America comes with a staggering average of electric consumption of up to 350 billion kWh per year. However, you can expect that average to go up as more people are now connected to the internet. But instead of looking at it as a negative factor, it actually opens up idea knowing that you can control the amount of use for the internet such that you can manipulate it to reduce your carbon footprint.

Below are some of the basic tips you can adapt into your own usage of the internet.

Avoid Printing Your Emails

Reading emails have made it convenient for you to communicate and get the information you need. You must therefore avoid printing your emails, as much as possible, to save on paper and the environment in general. After all, there are now several green email servers to ensure that you can easily check your mails without spoiling the environment's condition.

Choose Eco-Friendly Servers

Simply put, eco-friendly servers are those that utilize wind or solar power to provide you with the web services you need at home. The beauty about green servers is the fact that you do not have to compromise speed quality and connection just to benefit the environment.

Use Eco-Search Engines!

Newer search engines such as Ecocho and Blackle has been introduced into the Internet industry today in an effort to reduce carbon footprint. Blackle, for instance, is an energy saving search engine due to its use of black as the background image. You can therefore save on monitor power if you switch to using this particular search engine.

Choose Eco-Friendly ISPs

An eco-friendly internet service provider promises a more sustainable internet connection. Aside from basic dial-up connections and broadband needs, you can also get eco-friendly email and web hosting services. Even green ISPs have no trouble handling the required bandwidth for your internet needs at a reasonable price.

Share WiFi

If you or your neighbors have a WiFi connection, why not consider splitting it amongst yourselves? This is the new standard in internet connection nowadays due to its relatively wide area coverage and reliable internet connection. It is for this reason why people who live next to each other can considering splitting the fees and share the same connection.

Read News Online

Newspapers are days of the old. Online news is a faster and more efficient method of staying up-to-date on the latest local or global current events. It is an eco-friendlier option that newspapers, which require more trees to be cut down in order to produce the amount of paper needed to print the news out.

Shop Online

Online shops have become the new phenomonen these days. After all, modern individuals lead a fast paced lifestyle and no one has the time to stop by on the mall to do their shopping. By simply browsing online, you can have your items delivered to your doorstep. It enables you to cut down on packaging and other resources.

Pay Your Bills Online

A lot of banks and financial institutions have extended their branch online. You can therefore create your own online account to easily access them and use it to pay your bills online for a paper-free transaction. According to experts, this is a very efficient way to reduce carbon footprint with an estimated 100 million pounds of papers saved by switching to online banking and payments.

Getting Started on Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

The rising concern for global warming and the need to save the natural resources for future generation has prompted a new environmental call for action – reducing your carbon footprint. To put it simply, it requires citizens to lead an earth-friendly lifestyle to contribute to the preservation of its resources for longer.

But how can you get started on this? What are the initial measures you can take to make a positive impact on the environment? Below are simple ways you can adapt to reduce your own carbon footprint.

Transportation

Getting from one point to another does not have to compromise the environment. Therefore, you need to be wise about choosing the type of vehicle you use, its fuel emissions, or in some cases, when it is best not to drive at all.

If you are going to use a car for daily transportation, choose ones that are made out of green fuel technology to reduce harmful emissions by up to 75% without reducing horsepower and acceleration. You can also reach better mileage with these vehicles so you can save on fuel consumption. If you are traveling a short distance such as doing errands, why not take the bike or walk instead? In the end, it is beneficial for your own health and the environment. You can reduce your carbon emissions and also get yourself some much needed exercise.

Studying

Students can also make small but impactful contributions to the environment by observing green principles while studying. As much as possible, you have to reduce copying or printing your study materials. But if this is not possible, make sure to use both sides.

You can also reuse other items that do not degrade in nature such as paper clips, envelopes, and folders. It can also help you save money in the long run from not having to buy new items each time you need them.

Gardening

Make your garden as natural as possible to truly foster the growth and development of your plants while helping to preserve the environment. You can reduce your carbon footprint by turning your garden into your home's very own farmer's market. You can do this by planting edibles or vegetables you can cook with, which is naturally healthy and you can rest assured that it is fresh.

Food & Diet

When it comes to your diet, you need to consume more plant foods than meat since producing plant products require less land for agricultural production. You must also patronize your local natural food store to ensure not just fresh produce, but also environmentally-friendly packaging and selling practices. Although seafoods are preferable than meat products, you must be careful when choosing the type of fish to consume and ensure that they are healthy and sustainable.

All of the above items are just the simplest changes you can adapt. Of course, you can delve deeper into the concept of reducing your carbon footprint. You'll discover there is a lot more you can do for the betterment of the environment. However, the tips provided here are small but great start to making a huge difference.

Carbon Footprint and Green IT Practices

The need to become better stewards of the natural resources for its future preservation is not only a popular decision, but a smart one. Indeed, the concept of carbon footprint has now spread onto various industries whether it be in the transportation, communication, and business industry. One that is experiencing a strong surge as of late is green computing, or more commonly referred to as green IT. If you are part of this sector, you might want to learn more about how you can do your part.

Popularity of Green IT

IT or information technology is characterized by the advancement of technology and continued innovation. Their main purpose is basically make lives of everyone much easier and more efficient. But how would you like it if you can achieve the same purpose and save the earth's resources at the same time?

This is the reason behind the rapidly escalating practice of green IT across the business industry. It has resulted to several breakthroughs in the field of technology that is also recognized for its contribution to environmental preservation. But the biggest factor that draws attention to the concept of green IT is the ability to maintain the life and health of the world that humans inhabit.

What is Green IT?

To fully understand the essence and popularity of green IT and its impact in the carbon footprint concept, it is important to examine it closely. Do not be put off by the term “green IT” as it is nowhere near as complicated as it sounds. The basic ideal can be summarized in a few words – environmentally sustainable computing approach.

People who are employed in the IT industry are always seeking out new ways to develop systems and computers that can be recycled and renewed. All of these are crucial components in an effort to reduce carbon footprint through one's practice. As for green IT, the idea is to produce computers or systems that have increased longevity and can be easily upgraded to keep up with new technology.

It therefore addresses a common concern in the IT industry wherein most people often dispose off their old computers to buy a new one. This is both a waste of energy and money.

Benefits of Reducing Carbon Footprint in the Business World

It was not until recently when the business world caught on to the benefits of the carbon footprint concept. Business organizations have always tried to maintain a good reputation and getting involved in green IT practices and the fight for reducing carbon footprint is one of the ways to achieve that. On the part of the business, it also does them a lot of good since they can save valuable resources and look good to customers, especially those eco-conscious ones.

How To Start Practicing Green IT

Since the carbon footprint concept was launched, several trends have been initiated and keeping up with them is undeniably difficult. For businesses who are new to green IT practices, you can research for names of experts about this field that you can speak to and gain more insight into what you could possibly do in your business to join the bandwagon. But even if you do not partake in a large-scale campaign to reduce carbon footprint, simple measures such as opting for materials that can be recycled and saving on energy usage is the least you can do for the advocacy.

Become Carbon Neutral – How To Minimize Your Carbon Footprint

It only takes minimal effort to reduce carbon footprint but those little steps you take could mean a huge difference to the environment's welfare. How do you become carbon neutral?  You can get more details below to find out how.

Benefits of Becoming Carbon Neutral

It is part of human nature to seek out rewards or motivation for their actions. Hence, it is important to begin by understanding the benefits of reducing your carbon footprint before you can get started on developing a new eco-concious lifestyle and practices. Below are just some of the top benefits you need to find out:

•    Reducing your carbon footprint enables you to live a healthy and natural lifestyle.
•    You can lead a modern life and still be eco-conscious to maximize the value of life.
•    It promotes the quality of life, instead of making it more challenging as what most people perceive when you choose to become carbon neutral.

Saving Money and Saving Energy

On top of the benefits of turning into an eco-friendly lifestyle, there is an additional motivation for reducing your carbon footprint – the ability to save money. Saving money and energy always come together. If you can find ways to cut down on your use of energy, it will mean you are also spending less money than you are supposed to.

The need to save energy is the first step in an effort to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions to the environment. This measurement specifically focuses on the units of CO2 emissions, which is what creates negative impact on the environment. Going back on the cost savings, reducing energy consumption at home also enables you to reduce your electricity bills.

Simple Changes

One of the biggest hurdles to reducing your carbon footprint is that most people lack the knowledge on what they actually need to do. All it takes are simple changes that require you to spend less of the amount that you are used to for some of the basic necessities in life, such as clothing, gas, water, and food.

This is where the term carbon neutral comes in since you are able to practice balance in your life. You are consuming just the right amount you need – no more, no less.

Clothing

Did you know that your choice of clothing can aslo contribute to your total carbon footprint? Clothes made out of cotton fabrics and wool are two of the materials that have huge greenhouse gas impact, which is why you must avoid using them while you can. Even garment made out of natural fibers create a significant impact on greenhouse gas footprint.

Gas

There are a few steps you can take to reduce your consumption of gas and carbon footprint:

•    Walk instead of drive when traveling short distances;
•    Adapt the share-a-car scheme;
•    When buying a new car, make sure it comes with emissions.

Food

Choosing naturally organic foods, if possible the ones grown in your own eco-friendly garden at home. This will ensure that you can get all the nutrients you need with food that is fresh and all-natural. You not only reduce the carbon footprint in the process, but you can also enjoy good food.

10 Practical Steps to Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

If you want to live more efficiently, then you must try even in your simplest ways to make a difference and reduce your carbon footprint. Focus on saving energy, which will later on reward your efforts with cost savings.

You can get started with 10 easy tips you can develop into your lifestyle practice below.

1. Support eco-friendly products.

Due to the ongoing fight against global warming and promoting the need to reduce your carbon footprint, there is both an increase in the number of people who either sell or buy eco-friendly products. Nowadays, almost every item you need has an eco-friendly alternative to make choosing much easier for you.

2. Choose your packaging wisely. 

This is very important when you go out shopping. Choose reusable bags over disposable ones. If it is not readily available in your local grocer or supermarket, make sure you bring one yourself.

3. Produce your own chemical-free home cleaners.

Instead of buying conventional cleaning supplies off the store, why not make an easy, effective, and chemical-free alternative at home? All you need are the following ingredients: water, oil, soda, and essential oils. This solution is safer for the environment due to the lack of substances that can destroy the ozone layer, and much healthier for your family to inhale in (referring to the indoor quality and scent).

4. Turn off any appliance not in use.

This is your simplest contribution to reducing carbon footprint. In addition, you can get an added benefit on cutting down on your utility bills, if you managed to observe this regularly. Whenever you have finished using an appliance, make sure to always turn it off. If every home in the US observes this, approximately one-fifth of GHG emissions will be reduced.

5. Never buy paper towels.

Washable towels cost only around $20 and are safer to use since they are often made from natural fibers. You can use them for various purposes such as drying your hands, basic cleaning jobs, and dinner napkins instead of disposable napkins that add up to the total waste in the environment.

6. Dry your clothes in a line.

Conventional dryers cost a hefty amount to operate on a yearly basis. Hence, if you have a space in your backyward wherein you can line-dry your clothes, then buying an expensive dryer is impractical. It eats up more energy than any other appliances at home, except maybe for refrigerator, which is something that you cannot do without at home.

7. Reduce meat in your diet.

Steaks cost comparably more than a tofu does. In addition, experts also believe that you can reduce carbon emissions by eating vegetables than when you continue eating steak, or all types of dishes with meat.

8. Filter water instead of buying bottled ones.

The reason here is obvious since the former is a one-time payment and the latter will cost you more in the long run.

9. Plant organically in your garden.

This will help promote an organic diet in your household consisting of fresh and organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Since you are growing it in your garden, there is no additional costs involved.

10. Switch to energy-efficient home appliances.

This is the simplest step you can take to reduce carbon footprint, especially when it comes to your use of home electronic appliances.