Greenhouse gas reduction top tips

Stovesonline top tips for reducing your CO2 and CH4 emissions

Change your electricity provider - it's so easy
Switch your electricity to a 100% green tariff. This is overwhelmingly the easiest step to take and the one that can save most CO2. It's easy and only takes a few minutes....we can recommend Good Energy: Tel: 0845 456 1640, www.good-energy.co.uk, and Ecotricity, www.ecotricity.co.uk. Whoever you sign up with make sure it is a 100% renewable tariff.

Drive your car less
Drive less (around 60% of UK road transport CO2 emissions are from cars), use public transport, lift share, ride your bike, or walk.

Insulate and draught proof
Reduce your heating needs by insulating. If you have cavity walls then insulate them, insulate your loft, insulate your windows and doors using double glazed windows if possible.

Switch to renewable heating
Switch to renewable forms of heating like burning wood, and/or solar, and/or wind power, and/or heat pumps, etc.

Turn your heating down a little
Just turning your heating down by a degree or two can make a big difference and save you money too.

Meat is a treat (and eat less dairy)
Farming produces a huge amount of greenhouse gases with the lion's share down to rearing animals. Of the food grown for livestock typically it is only around 10% of the food that is turned into meat (so rearing animals is around 90% less efficient than eating the food ourselves). For example you could either eat 100 carrots yourself or feed the 100 carrots to an animal and end up with 10 carrots worth of meat. Farmed animals are also a major source of methane - another greenhouse gas and much worse than CO2 in terms of climate change. Eating less meat and dairy (assuming you eat 'a lot' in the first place that is) is also likely to be good for your health.

Recyle and compost
Recycle your waste and compost as much as you can
Reduce the waste that goes to landfill - landfill is a major source of methane.

Fly less
Flying is perhaps the single activity your are likely to do which produces the most CO2 in the shortest time. Try to fly less often or not at all. If you do fly then many companies provide carbon offsetting allowing you to finance projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Source locally
Source food and goods that are made locally if possible - haulage accounts for around 20% of CO2 emissions from UK road transport.

Use less electricity
There are many easy ways in which you can reduce your electricity use: use low energy bulbs, turn off the lights in rooms you are not in, dry your clothes outside if possible as opposed to using a tumble dryer, do not leave appliances on standby, only boil as much water as you need.

You can read more about global warming and climate change here.

Read about ways in which we are trying to make Stovesonline a more sustainable business.