It's a phrase we hear all the time- but what does it actually mean? And what can we do as individuals?
What is a 'carbon footprint'?No, it's nothing to do with treading coal into the carpet… The 'carbon' in this phrase means carbon dioxide (or CO2, which is one of the greenhouse gases that are contributing to global warming, or climate change.
The 'footprint' means the environmental impact of the carbon dioxide your activities produce. And just about everything in everyday life produces carbon dioxide emissions, from burning fossil fuel, such as wood, and turning on a light to driving or using a computer.
What's carbon offsetting?
Carbon offsetting is taking steps to undo the damage your carbon dioxide emissions are doing to the environment. Where you'll see this term used most often is relating to travel, because planes pump out loads of carbon dioxide, and in the UK, air travel is estimated to be responsible for 5.5 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. There are lots of companies who now 'offset' your carbon, by planting trees, for example, or investing in eco-friendly projects that are aimed at undoing the carbon damage.
When we ran a poll on the homepage about whether you carbon offset when you travel, the biggest response was to the answer 'What's carbon offsetting?, with 58% of your votes. And your next most popular response was a flat 'No' with 30%.
Our homes produce a third of the UK's total carbon dioxide emissions
Carbon neutral means that a person or business has no emissions. This rare state is achieved when the amount of CO2 produced by a business or person is equal to the amount they remove by offsetting or another direct measure, such as planting trees which then absorb.
What can I do?
Many energy-saving and going-green measures will reduce your carbon footprint.
For ideas, see our green living guide. For larger-scale carbon offsetting, you can pay a company to do it for you. You visit the company's website, calculate your carbon footprint for a journey or activity, then pay the company. It then buys 'credits' from emission reduction projects which have prevented or removed an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide elsewhere.
The amount of offsetting required is calculated differently. My return flight from London to Madrid was calculated at £4.67 on www.carbonfootprint.com and was spent on tree planting in Kenya's Great Rift Valley. The same flight was calculated at 15 euros on
www.atmosfair.de and 15.29 euros on www.myclimate.org. You can also calculate your entire personal carbon footprint based on home power use and car travel too. Tesco's site calculates your gas and electricity usage and allows you to offset www.tescoenergy.com/tesco/CarbonOffset.
At www.unravelit.com/carbon_offsetting.html you can calculate your total carbon footprint, including home energy use and travel. However, the best way of having a postive effect on the planet is to reduce your carbon footprint, not pay someone else to invest in reducing it for you.
However, although the growth in cheap flights has been cited as an environmental menace, it's actually our homes that produce a third of the UK's total emissions. So for anyone who feels that too much emphasis has been placed on individuals' actions, while businesses get away with it, there's your answer – we all need to act.
Is it too little too late?
As Al Gore says in his climate-change documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth: 'It is now clear that we face a deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely.'
Opinion is divided on whether carbon offsetting by you and me is a viable way to reduce the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, I feel that we can all do a little - and many carbon-footprint-reduction measures save you money too – and we can't sit back and wait for governments and big business to act on our behalf.
And the recent Climate Change Bill calls for individuals to cut their carbon emissions. Environment secretary David Miliband, speaking at the launch of The Climate Group's 'We're in this together' campaign, said: 'Climate change doesn't discriminate. Whether you're a business, a government, or an individual, it is a threat to us all and therefore a challenge for us all.'
For more information:
Read the book 'How to Live a Low-Carbon Life' by Chris Goodall (Earthscan, £13.49). You can buy it direct from the website, www.lowcarbonlife.net, where you can also read extracts.
'Green Living for Dummies' is described as 'your
comprehensive guide to doing your bit for the planet' (Wiley, £15.99)
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