Go green and save money
Energy Saving Day director Matt Prescott says that tightening our belts could be good news for the planet
With energy bills creeping up and house prices falling it’s easy to question whether we can justify our high-minded ideals for protecting the environment. The good news is that you can beat the recession without pummelling the planet.
And you don’t have to choose between helping your bank account or the environment - you can help them both. Practical “win-win” solutions are often about reducing waste. Measures include installing insulation to cut your heating bill while keeping warm, using up left over food and making better use of rainwater.
Adopting some no-cost and low-cost measures could make a massive difference to your household bills and help to minimise your impacts on the environment.
Cash back
So how much could you save? Using BBC Green’s Action Plan, which rates individual eco-actions by effort, CO2 saving and financial cost, you can calculate the money you could get back.
According to the Action Plan calculations, many of the savings are about food and energy. The combined impact of reducing your food waste, heating the home more efficiently and eating out less often could save the average family more than £1000 per year.
Many of us rely on a car, but if it’s a luxury, you could also save much more than that by switching to public transport.
And you can make smaller savings by using more environmentally technologies in the home, such as low-energy lightbulbs and electricity meters, such as the Wattson.
Forcing change
With all these possible savings on offer, why do we often find it so difficult to adopt win-win solutions? There will always be occasions when it is perfectly reasonable to blame our lack of action on the absence of any cheaper or better alternatives.
The first generation of energy saving lightbulbs is a good case in point, as they were rubbish! In fact, these light bulbs were so bad, and so disappointing, that many people have still not forgiven their poor-quality and need convincing to buy them again.
But today, modern energy saving lights bulbs are much easier to adopt and to defend. They brighten up more quickly, produce a good quality and quantity of light and use 60% less energy. Plus, they can each save approximately £9 per year on your electricity bill.
In other cases, perhaps we should admit that there are some less flattering reasons for sticking with what we know.
Old habits die hard
Old habits are hard to change and this means many of us will only really change when we are absolutely forced to, either by the government or a very nasty bill. It can also be very hard to calculate the real cost of our existing behaviours and technology, let alone their alternatives.
It doesn’t help that most of us still rely on energy bills that arrive months after all of the relevant decisions were made or on unintelligible energy meters hidden under the stairs or outside.
One step at a time
So how can you tackle some of these common problems? BBC Green’s Action Plan is an accurate, flexible tool, which has been specially designed to offer tailor-made ‘green’, money-saving solutions to work for you.
Here are a few examples of the carbon and cash savings on offer:
- Avoiding long haul flights could cut your carbon emissions by 1.2 tonnes.
- You could save around £90 per year on your heating bills by insulating your cavity walls.
- You could cut your heating bills by 10% by turning down your thermostat by 2 degrees.
- Switching from a car model rated E for fuel efficiency (like a Ford Mondeo 1.8) to a model rated B (like a Honda Civic Hybrid) could reduce the emissions per mile, and your fuel costs, by around 40%.
So what are you waiting for? Whether you want to take small steps or make big changes, there are plenty of ways to make a difference.
And remember, if you have green blood coursing through your veins, the ten most ambitious Action Plan measures could reduce your annual emissions by 7.6 tonnes, or more than half.
Share this
(What is this?)