Huge efforts needed to raise awareness of carbon footprints

19 November 2008

Cut your Carbon campaign manager, Alex Menhams, is calling on individuals concerned about climate change to measure their carbon footprint.

He commented: "Last week I went to the Community Action for Energy (CAfE) conference in Oxford and it was a great event with lots of people sharing the ways they are helping people to cut their carbon emissions. I learnt that apparently only around 2 per cent of UK households have completed a carbon footprint. If this holds true in the East of England, then there is a huge opportunity to raise awareness among the 2.3 million households in the region of how they are contributing to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.

I find this is a pretty scary statistic as well - because significant, rapid change is needed to fend off the worst impacts of climate change. However, I left the conference feeling encouraged that getting neighbours, friends and colleagues to influence each other through a community approach is key to getting the other 98 per cent of people to measure their carbon footprint. People like to keep up with Joneses after all!

Over the coming three months we are doing a lot of work to to help you get out there and raise awareness and to get maximum impact from every carbon footprint completed. For starters we are developing a personal carbon footprint report which will show in more detail what people's emissions are, how they compare to other people and what they could do to take action. We are also developing some leaflets for you to put through letterboxes or hand out at events so you can get as many people as possible to take part. As ever, we are developing the system for you, so do let us know what you need so we can make a big difference on the biggest of all issues!"  

If you haven't measured your carbon footprint yet click here to do so.