How to reduce your carbon footprint?

Climate change is real and knowing what carbon footprint is, is important so that we can take the necessary actions to prevent the devastating effects it can have on our Mother Earth.

What exactly does carbon footprint mean?

According to WHO, a carbon footprint is a measure of the impact your activities have on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced through the burning of fossil fuels and is expressed as a weight of CO2 emissions produced in tonnes.

If you have been actively keeping up with our previous blogs, you must know by now, what carbon footprints are and how they affect our planet.

Now that we have the information of what, and why, let’s try to look into the hows of reducing carbon footprint. Mentioned below are some of the changes we can make in our lifestyle to reduce our carbon footprints at an individual level.

Let’s take a look at them!

1. Shifting to walking or cycling as the main form of transport

Do you know that an average vehicle produces 411 grams of carbon dioxide per mile?

Considering that there are more than 1.42 billion cars in the world and each travels an average of 25 miles per day, the amount of carbon dioxide produced is 14.6 billion kilograms per day and 5325 billion kilograms per year.

What is even more shocking is the fact that these statistics are only for passenger vehicles. The pollution created by the other commercial vehicles like buses, trains, and aeroplanes is way more than the pollution created by these passenger vehicles.

Do you understand now what a huge change walking or cycling to the supermarket makes to the environment?

Ditching your cars, and travelling via foot or cycles helps keep not only the environment clean but also your bodies.

Physical activities reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, enabling us to have a healthier and active lifestyle. So, get that cycle out of the storeroom and start your journey towards a healthier you and environment!

If not walking or cycling, then try travelling via the public transport facilities provided by the government.

What matters most is your decision to ditch your vehicles.

Below is a blog by a Harvard research group on the climate impacts of biking vs driving:

https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/blog/climate-impacts-biking-vs-driving

2. Have lesser barbeques

Having barbeque parties where one gathers around with family and friends to burn food is surely a fun way to catch up but not a healthy or sustainable one.

Generally, fossil fuels like coal are burned to heat the food, which in turn, leads to a huge amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. Not only does this release toxic gases like carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide into the air, but also reduces the number of fossil fuels on the planet.

We may be having a good time but our Earth isn’t, trust us.

3. Go zero-waste

Going zero waste simply means not letting anything go to waste. Items such as plastic bottles, cans, glass or metal items can be recycled and reused in various ways.

Upcycling clothes is a fun and creative way to produce something new. It basically means turning old clothing items, mainly vintage items into something better and new. Through upcycling, one does not only help the environment but gets to explore their creative side.

Recently, 11th Hour conducted a virtual Best Out of Waste Challenge where participants had to make any item of their interest with waste items only. Many of the participants were young, around the ages of 10-16, and were accompanied by their parents. This way parents got to spend quality time with their kids while also educating them on the importance and benefits of reusing waste materials.

Thus, for all the parents reading this, this can be a potential activity to do with your kids at home as you can get to spend quality time while also teaching them something extremely valuable at the same time.

After all, the future of our Earth lies in the hands of our youth.

4. Modify diets to reduce meat consumption

To produce meat, many forests are burned down to make space for agriculture and that land is used majorly to raise cattle. This is extremely harmful to our ecosystems and also leads to global warming.

According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), meat and dairy account for around 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Thus, consuming more vegetables and fruits isn't just beneficial for us humans but also for our environment. For all the meat lovers, you don't have to completely switch to being 100% vegetarian but by consuming more vegetarian items, you can contribute to help climate change by up to 60%.

Small sacrifices can make a huge difference.

5. Conserve energy and water at homes

The current Covid-19 pandemic has led to many Singaporeans work from homes which caused a higher usage of electricity and heat in our houses. This led to an average increase in household electricity consumption of 22% from February to May 2020. By October 2020, electricity consumption increased by 16 per cent while gas went up 34 per cent.

Some steps to reduce our usage are:

1. Switching off heat, electrical appliances such as lights, fans, television when not in use

2. Take shorter showers instead of baths

3. Switch off taps when brushing

4. Wash vegetables in a container of water instead of a running tap

5. Install solar panels

6. Shop and dress sustainably

Some ways to do so:

1. Avoid putting your purchased items into plastic bags by refusing to take them from shopkeepers who provide them. Instead, carry your own reusable cloth bags, jute bags or old plastic bags.

2. Donate your old and unwanted clothes

3. Choose natural or organic material of fabrics, instead of going for cotton or animal products like snakeskin, leather which are extremely toxic to the environment

4. Thrift or purchase second-hand clothing items

Jute bags are an excellent option as they are made of fibres, are biodegradable and pretty durable. In comparison to plastic bags, which are significantly weaker and take about 400 years to break down.

Jute bags can be used for up to a year, compared to a plastic bag which has no guarantee of its lifespan and is vulnerable to breaking at any moment. Thus, jute bags are a far better option.

By adopting new habits and putting them into practice daily, we can help protect our planet so join us in our mission of saving our planet, our home, our sanctuary, Earth, before it’s too late…

We are willing to change our habits for the sake of our Earth! Are you?