Tips of the week
K ettle on, TV blaring, kids on the Xbox, washing machine on the go and the dishwasher blitzing pots and pans. Meanwhile, the central heating is warming the room and heating the bath water, while outside daylight fades and on go the lights. Phone, laptop, tablet on charge, and from the digital clock in the bedroom and the electric toothbrush to the fridge and microwave, we’re powering up.
It’s only when we stop and think of how many appliances and gadgets we might be running at any one time that the scale of our energy addiction becomes worryingly clear.
Every year, Scotland’s households spend around £1.48 billion on electricity, while the weather means Scots use up more gas than any other part of the UK.
But it’s not just the financial costs that are an issue. Every home is responsible for masses of CO2 every year – the equivalent weight of a large family car – just for the electricity it consumes.
Now a major new Scottish Government campaign is underway, aimed at encouraging us all to think about how much energy we use.
At its heart is a series of short films featuring comedian Phil Kay, who points out the “Stupidly Simple” tiny tweaks every household could make to help Scotland reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.
It’s hoped that if we all play our part across five key areas – home energy, food waste, travel, reducing and reusing what we have and recycling what we don’t need – we’ll make Scotland greener.
New figures show Scotland has missed its annual climate change targets for the fourth year in a row. Although greenhouse gas emissions fell by 3.6 per cent between 2012 and 2013, we are still responsible for 53 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
20 JUNE 2015 Don’t leave gadgets like phones and tablets charging overnight and don’t leave appliances on standby. If your property has a high ceiling, put a shelf above the radiator to deflect heat to the middle of the room instead of letting it drift to the ceiling.
Make Scotland Greener
According to Mike Thornton, UK group director, Government Programmes, Energy Saving Trust, it’s in all our interests to act.
“It’s now generally accepted that our climate is changing and we’ll see more extreme weather events in Scotland in the future,” he says. “Longer term, these changes are likely to affect health, infrastructure, agriculture, air and water quality and more. However, we can all play our part in slowing down and minimising these changes by cutting our carbon emissions, using energy more efficiently, switching to renewable energy sources, avoiding food waste and recycling.”
Scottish households and individuals are responsible for 77 per cent of Scotland’s consumption emissions. Yet cutting down doesn’t have to mean dramatic changes in lifestyle – if we all simply tweaked the central heating thermostat by one degree we would save £85 million a year and enough CO2 to fill 168 Murrayfield stadiums.