Blog: Success! I significantly reduced my carbon footprint

Last week my total weekly emittance of C02 is 97.5 C02. Given my target is 116.9Kg of carbon per week in order to maintain the Paris Agreed climate reduction, I am nearly 19.4Kg of carbon under my weekly allowance (approx. 17% below my allowance).

Okay, let’s break it down though, last week was slightly different. I mostly worked at home and when I did go to work for two days consecutively, I stayed over (works do!), so whilst this did reduce my carbon footprint, I have not factored in a hotel stay (which I am sure is pretty carbon ladened – one to review in another blog).

However, that’s not the only contributor to my carbon reduction this week. I have made some major dietary changes too.

Over the last week, I have omitted red meat from my diet and switched cheese out from my sandwiches. Who would have thought what a dramatic reduction in carbon these two simple actions would have, but is this maintainable?

I love steak and I am a huge fan of cheese, which is probably why I am not built like Usain Bolt, so I am not that keen to totally eradicate these elements of my diet.

But there is the ‘small nudge’ effect which I think could work for me here. For example, the choice of a chicken burger over a steak burger is not a huge problem for me, and, in the light of the above, I will at least try a ‘veg based’ burger and see where this takes my carbon footprint wise.

Cheese is trickier. I love cheese, but on reflection, much of the cheese I eat is a pure habit, such as snacking.

Maybe if I reserve my cheese consumption to a conscious event, perhaps a specialist cheese with a nice port and switch my snacking to something else this could be a positive change for the carbon footprint and who knows, I may even get closer to the Usain Bolt build.