My personal plan to help change the future.
With the pressing urgency for humanity to radically reduce carbon emissions this decade (see below video for why this decade is critical), I am on a mission to do my bit for the future.
Instead of waiting for the transition to happen around me, I want to take charge and change what is within my power.
The big questions for me initially were:
What are the big-bang items within my power that will reduce my carbon footprint?
What influence do I have to help drive the clean economy and sustainability transformation we need?
I’m sharing the five plays my exploration revealed and how I’ve translated this into a personal carbon detox plan.
Carbon maths for households
To start, I delved into the data on household emissions.
Household emissions break down further into Energy, Agriculture, Waste and Other Consumption (see below).
Let’s go through these individually.
1. Energy 34%
34% of households’ carbon footprint is energy to power our vehicles and electricity.
For Australia as a whole, 82% of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions (1) come from burning fossil fuels to create energy for electricity, heating or transport vehicles. Households make up more than one-third of these emissions.
To tackle this lever, my detox plan involves two steps:
Switching to 100% green electricity. For roughly an extra $177 annually on my bill - less than a new pair of shoes! - I can help fund additional renewable energy projects.
Generating my own clean energy and electrifying everything in my house. This means installing solar panels and a battery, decommissioning my gas heating in favour of electric heat pumps for heating/cooling, and shifting to an induction cooktop. For transport, we will switch to an electric vehicle.
Surprisingly, decommissioning my gas heating provides the biggest reduction in my carbon footprint. On top of requiring electricity to run the fan, gas is four times less efficient at heating air than heat pumps.
2. Agriculture 7%
Australia’s agriculture (excluding exports) is around 7% of household emissions. Whilst this seems small, when you look globally, agriculture accounts for about 25% of global emissions, with beef the largest contributor.
Surprisingly, if beef were a country, it would be the 3rd largest greenhouse gas producer!
My goal is to cut red meat down to no more than once a week and substitute with plant-based protein, eggs, chicken or pork, which all have lower carbon footprints.
3. Waste 2%
Do you put a lot of effort into recycling? I know I do, and there are huge environmental benefits in creating less plastic and recycling. However, when it comes to stalling climate change by reducing carbon emissions, waste isn’t a big-ticket item.
Recycle if you can, but if that is all you do for climate action, don’t fool yourself into believing your job for the planet is done. The real benefit comes from buying less stuff and less packaging, not what happens once it goes in the bin.
4. Other Consumption 57%
Now we come to the crunch. Have you ever noticed the word consume and its derivative consumer mean to devour or deplete? You see where I’m going with this…
Many of us - myself included - buy too much stuff. Stuff we may not really need, or that could be repaired or obtained second-hand. Every product or service we buy has an inherent carbon footprint from materials, manufacture and transport (also known as embodied carbon).
Until more businesses decarbonise their operations, we can radically reduce our household emissions by focussing on finding meaning in our lives independently of material goods, buying less and buying green.
This approach will help save our children’s future AND send a powerful signal to organisations to transition faster to a clean economy.
5. Citizen power
Of course, our impact doesn’t stop as soon as we leave our castles. We can help drive the change further by preferencing employers with sustainability and decarbonisation plans or by working from within to accelerate the transition.
We can also use our democratic votes to support a faster transition to a clean economy and plans that help Australia prepare and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The sum of all cutsIf you’re curious, you can see the impact of this plan on my household carbon footprint below. All these actions combine to cut my carbon footprint by 68%! I am aiming to complete this plan within a year.
If you want to check out your carbon footprint, you can find the calculator I used here.
Every little bit adds up.
If enough of us take action, we can drive the rapid transformation we desperately need to stabilise the climate.
The radical carbon detox I’m proposing won’t work for everyone. For some, it will come down to financial capacity or lack of control over your home set-up (such as renters). That is why I want to do more than my fair share. Until there are sufficient supports and changes to help all Australians decarbonise, I see it as my responsibility to do more - simply because I can.
What are you doing for the future?
Is there more, even a little more, that you can do today?
*Special thanks to my editorial support Alicia Spyropoulos.
Sources: Unless otherwise indicated, sources are Rewiring Australia Castles and Cars: Savings in the suburbs through electrifying everything, Technical Study and Australian Government, Quarterly update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory - December 2019, Visual Futurist analysis
1. This excludes emissions from producing our export products.
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