Calculating the BIG Energy Hogs in our Households
Calculating the BIG Energy Hogs in our Households
As I began my quest to slow or turn climate change, I started to ask questions like:
How much of an impact can I really have?
What areas of my lifestyle / home / car have the greatest impact?
What areas are cheap(er)? What is the “low hanging fruit”?
The answer to the first question, “How much of an impact can I really have?” each individual can have a significant impact on slowing climate change – both directly (house and transportation) and indirectly (purchase of food and products/services). You’ll see in our An Individual’s Impact on Climate Change post, that we have a direct impact on 20% of the world’s CO2 emissions and a significant indirect impact on the remaining 80% through what we buy and the companies we support.
Once I learned that I could make a difference, I searched out answers to my second question, “What areas of my lifestyle / home / car have the greatest impact?”
To help answer this question, I found a few carbon footprint calculators online that allowed me to see what my household was contributing on an annual basis and to (more importantly) understand the areas that have the largest contribution.
> Carbon Offsets to Alleviate Poverty
I also found a really good water consumption calculator that works in a similar way:
These calculators are all pretty easy to use. For the most part, they look at your consumption of fuel to heat/cool your house, your electricity consumption, your auto fuel consumption, airline flights, water consumption, and purchased goods.
You may ask, why do my purchased goods matter?
Your purchased goods require raw materials to manufacture (which requires energy/fuel) and shipping and transportation (more fuel) to deliver these products to your doorstep or a local store.
Once I had used the calculators above, I found myself faced with two primary challenges:
One is that I wanted to dig deeper into some of the large energy hogs – like electricity usage. I wanted to know which appliances in my household consumes the most energy.
Two, I wanted to view all of my energy usage in one comprehensive view in order to compare side by side – in order to do an “apples to apples” analysis.
By combining the calculator results and adding further depth into areas like electricity, I was able to get a full comprehensive view of my largest energy hogs.
As you’ll see on our Calculate & Plan page, we offer this ‘consolidation’ exercise for a small nominal fee so that you can also see what parts of your household have the greatest impact!
The last questions, “What areas are cheaper?” “What is the low hanging fruit?” is the toughest to answer and starts to become somewhat customized to each individual household. You can find more information on this on our Calculate & Plan page as well as our post 10 low cost, high impact tips to slowing climate change.
Hopefully this helps you to understand that you can make a difference and provided some guidance on how to identify the energy hogs in your household.