Cut Your Emissions - By: Dave Sabri

In December this year, Copenhagen will host the UN Conference on Climate Change. Members will discuss ways countries can cut back on their greenhouse gas emissions. While governments should certainly take the lead on this, we as individuals must play our part too.

40% of all carbon emissions in the UK come from our cars and our electricity usage in our homes. On a national level, transport is the biggest polluting sector in the country but this includes planes, trains and lorries. On a personal level it is our heating that contributes the most CO2 into the atmosphere, and 60%, comes from our boilers.

Thankfully new technologies can help reduce the waste given off by our boilers and actually lower the level of energy and therefore CO2 emissions, used to power them. Modern combi-boilers only heat up the water as and when it is needed, so you don’t need to leave the boiler on all the time. This helps the environment and also saves you money.

Energy-efficient, condenser boilers stop around 875kg of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere and will mean around £170 off your heating bill. They do this by making use of the gases normally lost through the exhaust flue to condense the water vapour in the boiler back into water. This saves heat and energy therefore reduces CO2 emissions.

If you upgrade your old boiler for a new one by 25 July, British Gas can install one of these with radiator controls as well as offering free home care for a lot less than normal.

The most common sense way to use less heat is to minimise the amount lost through the walls and roof. The less heat you lose, the less heat you use. You can have insulation installed for around £700 and under a government initiative you could get up to £125 back as a tax rebate.

British Gas estimate that you could save around £365 a year with proper insulation, so if you add to this the savings to your heating bill, insulation will effectively pay for itself in less than two years. You will also reduce CO2 emissions by over 1000kg because you will be using less power to heat your home.

If everyone in the UK switched to an energy-efficient boiler, we would save 13 million tonnes of CO2 and enough energy to power 3.4 million homes for one year.

In December this year, Copenhagen will host the UN Conference on Climate Change. Members will discuss ways countries can cut back on their greenhouse gas emissions.

British Gas is not just a gas supplier. They are also one of the leading electricity suppliers and even help you with the installation of more efficient radiators.