Whenever we think about reducing our carbon footprint the few things that come to our mind are
Using electric cars instead of conventional ones
Consuming local products instead of imported ones
Keeping devices on standby mode
Switching to digital transactions instead of paper
All the things that are mentioned above seem like sustainable practices but the question is are they really as good as they seem to be? Let's have deeper insights into sustainability. I don't want to add so many numbers and stats and make things complex to understand, will try to explain in simple words.
Using electric cars instead of conventional ones reduces carbon footprint :
The first reason for choosing an electric car is to take an alternative to fossil fuel consumption. But 61% of the world's power is still getting generated using fossil fuels. So electric cars are using the same kind of energy that conventional cars use but in some other way. The batteries for electric cars use a lot of Lithium, Copper, Cobalt, Aluminium, Nickel, Manganese, etc. Which requires a lot of laborers to work in most dreadful situations and factories to process metals that are rich in producing all kinds of wastes that contaminate water, air, and soil. Not only these but there is another worst side of mining in countries like the Congo where mining includes a lot of child labor and mining happens in absolutely most dangerous environments where no safety measures are followed.
There is no proper evidence in proving what is better but there is a big debate going on the internet that the manufacturing of lithium batteries generates more carbon footprint than conventional cars, making electric cars worse than conventional ones. Whatever we start producing affects the environment in some way or other but the most important thing is we should be really conscious of choosing the better option.
Instead of using our own car regardless of what its fuel is, we can choose public transport at least 3-4 days a week which makes a significant difference in individual carbon footprint.
Why should we miss a win-win situation, try to walk or use a bicycle to travel small distances it keeps both the planet and the body healthy.
Consuming local products instead of imported ones reduces carbon footprint :
Consuming local products instead of imported ones reduces carbon footprint sounding very convincing but is actually not so convincing : ). Let's say mangoes can be harvested only in Summer in the country you are living and they will be available throughout the year in the neighboring country. The amount of power a cold storage takes to store mangoes for 6-7 months will consume much more power than importing them from neighboring countries.
Food production accounts for 83% of carbon emissions each year. Below are some best practices to reduce the carbon footprint from food.
Minimize food and water waste.
Try to recycle organic waste, we can convert almost all organic waste to fertilizers or to biofuel.
Make an effort to reuse or upcycle waste items that cannot be recycled.
Try to prefer seasonal and locally grown food.
Try to grow at least a small amount of food on your own.
The best way to reduce the carbon footprint from organic waste is following the 3R's way.[Reduce, Reuse, Recycle].
Keeping devices on standby mode reduces carbon footprint :
Standby consumption is the energy used by appliances when they are not actively being used or turned on. Globally stand-by consumption accounts for 2% of total electricity consumption and 1% of CO2 emissions. This may not sound like much, but considering this as power leakage this is awful. In an average household in the UK, £147 a year could be saved by eliminating standby power.
The first and best way to reduce standby consumption is unplugging or switching off the power supply to the device when we re not using it.
Using LED bulbs.
Use an energy-efficient IE3 ventilation motor.
Try to purchase Energy star products that consume less power in standby mode.
Switching to emails and digital transactions instead of going for the paper:
We often associate paper manufacturing with cutting down trees, but paper can also be manufactured from sugar cane bagasse, husks, straw, bamboo, kenaf, hemp, jute, flax, textiles, and cordage wastes. Even we can recycle used paper into new ones. All digital transactions and communications consume energy to happen also all the data get stored on the cloud, where servers consume enormous amounts of energy. So the carbon footprint may be almost same in both cases unless we regularly
Clear our mailboxes and unsubscribe from unwanted communications.
Remove unnecessary data from our storage it may be on any kind of driver, server, or on-cloud storage
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