16% carbon reduction this year in our 100 Homes project

The first 26 households in our 100 Homes Project have reported a 16% reduction in carbon emissions, compared to last year.

We launched the 100 Homes project eighteen months ago to help homes outside the Low Carbon Zone reduce their emissions.We’ve been working with an initial set of 50 households, mostly in Muswell Hill, but some in Fortis Green and Alexandra.    Each household had a detailed ‘baseline’ carbon footprint performed in Summer 2010 and over the last year have attendedworkshops on energy saving through behaviour change, boilers and insulation,solar renewables, sustainable food and sustainable transport.

After one year we requested updates on each household’s carbon emissions (the ‘first year snapshot’).  On the down-side we were only able to get detailed updates from 25 participating households – one of our findings so far is that many people do not keep track of their energy bills and don’t know their annual energy usage.  On a more positive note, the households that did provide updates had made real savings in their carbon emissions.  Overall there was a 16% reduction in carbon emissions, with air travel reducing by 35% and car travel by 26%.  On energy use (gas and electricity) the reduction was less marked – just 4% – however last year’s cold winter meant that nationally 15% more energy was used to heat our homes – so
it’s quite impressive that the 100 Homers reduced their energy use.  Another piece of good news is that participating households are implementing measures to reduce their energy usegoing forwards.  A third have installed new boilers (many through our Low Carbon Buying Group – see below), a third have boosted their loft insulation and 28% replaced windows.  So we should see even better results on home energy use in our follow up snapshot in Summer 2012.

If you’ve not yet completed your first year snapshot survey you can still do so at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9YVWDSL