Day 111: Bristol Green Doors

What a lovely idea - a weekend where people around your city open their doors to show what they've done to make their lives that little bit more environmentally friendly. From the little changes: energy saving light bulbs, rainwater harvesting and home composting, to the larger changes like PV installations and complete house renovations. 'Green Doors' is an event taking place in Bristol (fast becoming a leader in 'eco-awareness' in the UK) on the weekend 11th & 12th September. Around 50 people will open their doors and let us all have a good poke around and ask those questions we'd all love to be answered: how much does it really cost? Do these changes actually make a difference? How does it impact on your day to day living? I'll be there, camera in hand, to report back on what I find out.

The 'green' aspect aside, the whole event strikes as a rather wonderful idea anyway. The idea of homes being opened up to the public, and for people to say: 'come in, this is how we live' is quite a heart-warming notion. As much as I'm sure I'll take away great tips and tricks to shave a few kilowatts of my footprint, I'm hoping to get a little more from the event. Maybe it's something we should all do. Every month we should all relax, open our doors and let the big bad scary world in for a few hours. Besides, what else is there to do on a dreary weekend in September? 

Visit: http://www.bristolgreendoors.org/ for more information.

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Day Two: 50 Things You Can Do

So it's day two. I've successfully calculated my own personal 'carbon footprint' and I'm ready to take on the world! Not that it's that easy, of course.

Those of you who may follow my Twitter feed (@c02neutralproj) may know that I already hit a small hurdle this morning. The mission: to get into the city centre to buy one item (a bike pump) without the need for cars, buses or public transport. Now, I used to walk to work everyday and it never bothered me, but faced with an ominous, heavy gray sky and seeing the bus, which stops virtually outside my house, every hour made my 'lazy gene' kick in, and I very nearly succumbed. You'll be glad to hear that I did not take the bus, and I did indeed cycle - and I feel all the better for it!

So now, new bike pump in hand I feel a renewed sense of 'eco-pride' (if there is such a thing) and am ready to get on with living the environmentally friendly life I've subscribed to. As a good start my partner came home yesterday, from a course of renewable energy, with, low and behold, a leaflet called: '50 things you can do to lead a more sustainable lifestyle' - my project, it seems, has the backing of the Powers That Be, or something like that. The list is mostly very achievable with things like: take showers instead of baths, turn your thermostat down by 1 degree and change to energy efficient light bulbs. These are all things that I am either already doing, or can easily fit into my lifestyle so, you know, kudos for me. You can find the full list of 50 on my page '50 Things' here, so you don't have to read through pages and pages of bullet-points in this post. Suffice to say, of the 50 things, I reckon I can easily fulfill at least 36 of them, but that does still leave me with a heinous 14 that either do not really apply to me, or are unachievable at the moment (install Solar Panels, for example - I do not have the cash for that right now).

One thing I have come to notice in all my research is that this whole 'environmentally friendly' lark really is a lot more complex than you might think. I stumbled across this video from the blog Every Small Thing and it just goes to show how you may think you're doing something beneficial for the environment, but in actual fact you're not helping at all. You'll never look at a paper towel in the same way again.

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Day One: Calculate my Carbon

Before I throw myself into an 'eco' lifestyle, I first need to assess what my impact is now. There's not much point in doing this if I can't compare it to my life before. This experiment is hardly what I'd call scientific, but this is the closest I'm going to get to having some kind of 'control' to compare my results against. 

Here's where you have to be careful with the statistics, and things get very fuzzy, very fast. On a personal level, I would argue my impact on the environment is small, but then it's not just me I have to consider. I live with my partner and, although my impact may be small, I cannot ignore our joint impact. We run (although I personally do not drive) a 2.0 litre diesel Land Rover, for one thing. Up until this experiment it was the norm to drive to the local supermarket to load up with a weeks shopping (interspersed with eco products where possible) and back again. It may only be a fifteen minute round trip, but calculate that over a year and that's around 13 hours of gas guzzling. So our 'Carbon Footprints' then, in my opinion, should be calculated using the 'unit' you call home. This may comprise of just yourself, or a family of seven, either way I believe that the 'home' (and all its constituent parts) is what needs to be assessed.

You may argue, 'how else would I do my shopping without a car?' - This is what I want to find out. Get the bus maybe? Practically though, few of us have the luxury of public transport links to the places we want to go. Then there's the crux of the issue: which is better? If you don't live in a major city (like me) then getting the bus may not be the better option. The bus closest to me, for example, rarely has more than two or three passengers, and of course runs all day everyday, stopping and starting and emitting C02 like crazy - surely the car is more efficient? All of these issues are a little foggy, a little contradictory even. So, to kick things off, I calculated my carbon footprint in order to see where I stand (pardon the pun), and here's what I got:

According to Mark Lynas' criteria here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/24/ethicalliving.g2

I came in just over 6 tonnes (roughly around 12 tonnes for both myself and my partner, over a year.) This put's me in the 'not too bad' category, apparently. When you consider though, according to Lynas, a sustainable carbon budget per person should be around 1 tonne annually, it sort of takes the shine of being in the 'not too bad' category. Obviously this 1 tonne ideal emission is pretty much unreachable for the average person in the world today, but that doesn't make me want to shave off a few kilo's here and there any less. Just in case you're interested, here's how my carbon footprint stacked up:

Carbon Footprint (over 1 year, for just me)

• Gas = 851.2 kg
• Electricity = 614.47 kg
• Car emissions = 1,484.3 kg
• Return flight to Barcelona = 1,282 kg
• Other (manufacturing, retail & services) = 2,000 kg

My carbon footprint = 6,232 kg (around 6 tonnes)

So, now that I know what affect I'm having now, it's time to start reducing it.

- James

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The Carbon Neutral Project - What's the 'Big Idea'?

What is my 'Carbon Footprint'?

Up until recently, I would have said minimal, negligible, maybe even (dare I say it) neutral. How do I know this? Why do I care? What affect can I really have on the environment, and can 'we' really make a difference?

I have always considered myself fairly low on the list of carbon criminials, for one simple reason: I do not own a car - but does that really make me exempt from all this? The short answer is, of course, a big fat no. I may nag my friends to recycle, and despair at those who refuse to take a look at the mounting evidence that we're all going to be screwed in a few years time; but can I really call myself an environmentalist? I decided to take a step back and look at my personal impact on the planet and try to lead as eco-friendly a life as I possibly could. I will follow the guidelines that we are bombarded with almost on a daily basis and, more importantly, find out why I'm following them and ascertain the impact (or lack thereof) my actions will have.

When I came to planning this project, I hit a wall: how long should this go on for? The answer? I really don't know. You could argue that by living an eco-friendly life for, say a month, would be enough to show how easy or difficult, how effective or ineffective and how necessary or indeed unnecessary it all is. It's mid-May though and I know that, given the bright sunny weather, I'm going to be far more interested in growing my own food, walking to the shops and all the other eco-friendly things that are, let's face it, much more alluring with the chance of a suntan, than I would be in November.

This project then, will last as long as it lasts. I have no 'yard stick' to go by and no means of comparing any results I may come across to any sort of reliable 'control' experiment. This is all, you might say, a work in progress.

To avoid losing all but the already converted 'Green' people amongst us, here's the crux of what I want to find out: can I lead a 'Carbon Neutral' life, and what impact will it have?

So as to give as accurate a picture as possible, I will be blogging as often as I can. I will let you in on all the nitty-gritty details that you don't often hear about and tell you what it's like, in all aspects of my day to day living, to lead a 'Carbon Neutral' (or as close as I can get to it) life. I would also really appreciate any feedback and ideas from those whom stumble across this blog, I'm firmly of the belief that the more issues like these are discussed, the better educated we all become.

Wish me luck,

- James

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