Carbon Healing Homes: A manual to reduce your carbon footprint

Your carbon footprint is the calculation of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions you produce from your activities, and these gases include carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide amongst others. An individual’s carbon footprint can be calculated based on a number of contributing factors, the bulk of which usually consists of emissions from food, housing, and transportation. 

Our carbon footprints contribute greatly to the warming of global temperatures. To put things in perspective, the earth has warmed at various times over the last 2 million years – but while it has taken the planet close to 5,000 years to warm 5 degrees on its own, the earth has warmed about 0.7 degrees in the last century alone, which is about ten times faster. This rapid increase is owing to the development and consumption patterns of humans. Predicted to warm twenty times faster over the next century, it’s integral to maintain global averages at an annual carbon footprint of 1.87 tonnes to help hold the temperature rise to a maximum of 2 degrees. Currently, averages vary, with the U.S at 18.3 tonnes and China at 8.2 tonnes.

How to reduce carbon footprints

Typically, the largest section of an individual’s carbon footprint comes from the emissions let out by housing activities. Heating, cooling, electricity, water, and waste are the largest contributions. By focusing on the different ways to reduce carbon footprints at home, we can work towards making a difference. And carbon healing homes are designed to make eco-living a way of life, giving us the chance to live close to a carbon-neutral lifestyle, shrinking our carbon footprint almost effortlessly.

Heating and cooling

The use of air conditioners and heaters contribute to a large chunk of emissions. Alternatives to heaters include insulating your home properly to ensure heat does not escape through cracks and gaps and keeping the curtains open to allow sunlight to warm your space naturally. To keep cool in the summers, opt for fans, and eat lighter, cold foods and stay hydrated. Dressing in loose and natural fabrics can also help. 

The benefit of carbon healing homes: With deciduous trees planted everywhere, the leaves will provide a cooler atmosphere and will filter sunlight out of the house in summers. In winters, as the leaves shed, the trees will allow sunlight to warm your house through open windows. 

Electricity

Currently, most households still use lights, fans and other appliances in a way that consumes power inefficiently, and sometimes, unnecessarily. One of the ways to reduce carbon footprints is to install energy-efficient bulbs like LEDs, which use a quarter of the power used to generate electricity for incandescent bulbs.

The benefit of carbon healing homes: These eco-friendly homes have tall windows to allow natural light, cutting down the need for lights to be on as much. Motion sensor and timer controlled LED lights are fixed across common spaces, and solar panels are installed to help generate power sustainably. 

Water

To live a carbon-neutral lifestyle, regulating our water usage is a must. One way to save water that most people don’t consider is to make the switch to reusable items. Products like paper plates and cups use gallons of water to make, only to be thrown away after a single-use. Another aspect of water conservation is preservation. With over 95% of the water on earth being too salty for consumption, we have very little left to use. Using natural, eco-friendly soaps in the kitchen and bathroom can prevent our water supplies from becoming polluted.

The benefit of carbon healing homes: By incorporating water conservation methods like rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharging, carbon healing homes create a sponge effect, in the sense that these eco-living establishments absorb water back into the developments, saving more and repurposing more, making them 0% discharge communities.

Waste

Landfills are overflowing in today’s day and age, and it’s important we keep a watch on how much waste we produce. Using glass jars and reusable containers goes a long way, and there are many new innovations that cut waste down to nothing. For example, toothpaste bits are small pellets available in jars so that you never have to throw away a plastic tube again.

The benefit of a carbon healing home: Biogas plants ensure waste is repurposed to create alternative fuel and act as a renewable power source. Compost pits convert organic waste to natural fertilizers that provide essential nutrients to nourish the soil and plants. And with recycling processes in place, these eco-friendly homes ensure that nothing ever goes out to a landfill.
If you’re thinking of how to reduce carbon footprints, check out Assetz Property Group’s range of carbon healing homes which enables the integration of sustainability in daily life, and helps give back to the environment considerably.