Is your footprint above or below average? And do you care?

[Cam77]

Is your carbon footprint above or below the national average - and if it’s above do you feel bad about it? There are some good calculators online which quiz you on every aspect of you lifestyle. For what it’s worth I’m below average on most metrics - food consumption, energy usage (average sized home with good rating), don’t drive (work from home), only one kid, etc. However, I do fly a fair bit including one long haul every couple of years (12 hour return flight to visit family) - and that alone bumps me right back up to around the national average. I feel kind of bad about it, but there you go.

If you do "carbon offset" your flights etc, does that really make much difference? I don't know what carbon offsetting actually means but say it's planting as many trees as would be needed to absorb the carbon (or whatever they do.. my knowledge is rusty), wouldn't the impact of the flight be immediate whereas the trees would take years before they did their stuff?

Also, if you're a meat eater but try to make sure your meat is high welfare and locally sourced, is that really worse than eating say a grain that's been transported by air from afar, possibly with some kind of negative repercussions to the land it originates from, or something like Quorn which I assume is fairly heavily manufactured? That's not intended as an argument against vegetarianism/veganism, I'm just not sure of the answer.

less than target on wwf site 94%, 9.9 tonnes. I'm pleased.

We have a big house, eat meat and occasionally (once every year, on average) take longhaul flights.

However, we take public transport to work, have reduced meat consumption, and 90% of the time consume stuff produced locally. We also recycle weekly and reuse materials actively. I refuse to buy a nespresso machine because of the pods, I use a Bodum instead. No more plastic water bottles, only nalgenes.

I don’t know really. We don’t drive as we live in a city with excellent public transport. We do eat meat, probably once every two days. Everything is recycled. We don’t have central heating or anything (we just use a small fan heater in winter or a fan in summer, we live abroad where central heating isn’t used). We do fly maybe once a year if we have time for a trip home.

Don't really drive anywhere.
Don't fly anywhere.
Buy clothes mostly second hand.
Eat plant based.

Feeling pretty smug!

According to that quiz I am above average - in spite of having no children, no flying, no car, walk almost everywhere, only eat meat a few times a week, recycle as much as possible. What the heck do I have to do????

I forgot to add I also buy mostly second hand.

Tried one, not UK based as im aussie
Too confusing, dont understand the numbers
Id assume we failed

We rural and tow crap so we have a big 4x4 diesel.
We eat meat and dairy and we buy cheapest. A vegan diet is out of the question for this house. We enjoy taste and easy fast meals.
In last 12 months we had 3 holidays, 2 flying, one driving in caravan, another flying one in feb coming up.
We buy new a lot as the 2nd hand market here is average, i wont pay top dollar for something dented that i can buy shiny new with warranty.
Same for clothes, styles, cuts, colours and prints i like, i have to shop online from china.

Im in the middle of a giant throw out. No longer will i keep stuff cos it may be useful or i can reuse bits, i just toss it now, the build up was mentally drowning us
Tried growing food, too hard, too tedious and time consuming.

We value convenience and good price above all else

I don't have children, so I'm waaaaay below average.

I don't have children, so I'm waaaaay below average.

Nor I, and yet I managed to score 116% on the WWF test, which felt the need to ask about pets but not about children. ¯\(ツ)/¯

That WWF calculator is laughably inaccurate outside the UK and when it doesn't take into account number of children when population growth is the issue then it's pointless!

I came out at 20 tonnes or 200% despite: -living off grid ( I shit you not!)
-commuting on public transport (I use a ferry, it suggested I cycle instead🙄)
-on one question, the best I could go for was just 'some of our food is locally sourced'. Not only is all of our food sourced within 10 miles (I can wave at a cow or sheep I might be eating a few weeks later) we fucking grow our own veg!

• I suppose I lost points for having a detached house. I live in a country with a tiny population and we all have detached houses! The nearest neighbours are 500 metres away, why would I live in a flat or a semi?! Not much I can do about that and it has no impact surely.

-we also have 3 bedrooms but only two adults. Again whats the issue here? If it's heating then....

• it asked me how hot I heat the house in winter. Winter here is beyond mild (rarely below 16c) and our electric heating (from the solar!!) goes on for half an hour very occasionally when we get an unexpected drop below 16c.
• I spend £10 to 50 on cosmetics and toiletries each month. All toiletries we use are made in this country and are bar versions so plastic free; even my moisturiser and face serums and deodorant.

I do fly a lot domestically for work and we fly long haul maybe 3 times a year. But given all the above and no kids I'd wager my footprint is significantly lower than most peoples on here. A single kid adds 80tonnes a year. A long haul flight 2 tonnes so I fail to see how those with three kids are coming out 'below average' and I'm a pariah! It's actually irresponsible!

One bedroom flat. No kids. Low emission car and 8,000 miles per year, mostly to get to work (rural, no public transport option). Approaching 46 and only flown six time (ie, three return journeys) all under a two-hour flight time. Minimal waste, recycle as much as possible. I have clothes that are 10+ years old. I think I'm doing my bit.

I will be above average and I do care.

Above average as there's two of us in a 4 bed house, I drive a fair amount to commute to and from work at the moment and we do about three overseas trips a year (always flying).

I'm planning changes though:

• We're going to carbon offset all flights from now on

• I'm reducing the amount we drive for short distances

• I'm currently transitioning to being veggie

• We are locked into finance for the cars we have for another 2.5 years but then will switch to electric / hybrid

We're reducing consumption of material goods, plastic, etc and growing some of our own food (though realistically this will only ever be a small proportion of our food).

I am changing jobs soon which means I'll probably be back to commuting via the train which will cut my annual mileage down by about 10k miles.

How do you carbon offset a flight?

The carbon offsetting people who fly do is just greenwashing

I know that by having fewer children, living in a small house, not buying new where possible or not at all when I can, not using planes and ensuring my meat and produce comes from within a 50 mile radius that I am lower than some

I could improve by using a milkman and reusing the bottles, or by taking less baths.

How do you carbon offset a flight?

www.carbonfootprint.com/carbonoffset.html

Worth a read before you do...

www.carbonindependent.org/10.html

76% by that calculator

It’s really not asking all the right questions though. There’s so many more ways people can improve than just by driving electric vehicles and going meat free

I've just done the WWF quiz and as suspected we are significantly higher....195% over target.

With the changes we're already planning to make it goes down to 119%.

I tend to review each year 'what else' we can do so once we've made the planned changes we'll be reviewing the next set of things we can do and hopefully will get it down to 100% or less.

I’m 83% according to the WWF quiz. Rarely fly, short haul every 2 years or so, vegetarian, very well insulated terraced house, no food waste. I do bloody love my little super efficient petrol car though. Really don’t want to give it up. Hate bus travel which is shit it in this city, too time consuming,

nakedavengeragain

I think for the locally sourced food question there was a better answer than "some of my food is locally sourced" - it might have been "most of my food is locally sourced". Not sure if it will make a huge difference to your score though. There are other calculators online that might be better for your country. I am in the UK but I found one on my utilities provider website which seemed more accurate to me than WWF

I think with the question about have you bought any large household goods this year like a TV, furniture etc could have been better phrased. Someone might have bought a new fridge and washing machine and TV this year and get a bad score from that, but they could have been replacing stuff they've had for 20 years. While someone who updates theirs every two years could come out better on the quiz if the timing is right. I think a better question would be more like: do you keep stuff until it's broken or do you replace technology to keep up to date, or something like that.

I guess these calculators are just a rough guide though.

My footprint is probably far lower than average, but that's a guess.

But it doesn't matter though. As long as Heathrow Airport pushes for more flights, all governments push for more airports and runways, and as long as China receives billions of aid from all of us to churn out more pollution, nothing I or you do will make a damn bit of difference.

Harriet exactly. We bought a new hoover this year. Our old one was over 20 years old. It was the same for our fridge freezer a couple of years ago. The one thing I have found though that once we buy something new it doesn't last as long as things used to do. We have had to replace our washing machine twice since we got a new model about 15 years ago.

A few people have mentioned, the single biggest thing you can do to cut down CO2 emissions is probably don't have children. (For members of a site named Mumsnet...yeah...).

I think with the question about have you bought any large household goods this year like a TV, furniture etc could have been better phrased

I agree. Surely the question should be 'how often do you replace' rather than 'have you in the last year'. We can't control when a washing machine breaks down but we can choose not to update items that are still working.

Same with cars, there seems to be no account taken of manufacturing processes. Continuing to run an existing car is better than manufacturing a new one.