We’ve previously spoken about sustainability for agencies and making properties more economical, but we haven’t touched on the biggest carbon producers in the property industry, and the properties themselves. With 40% of UK emissions coming from households, this is a sizable contributing factor to our carbon footprint.
Eco Developers are making some headway into improvements and becoming more desirable not only due to their sustainability plans, but also due to them thinking ahead, not simply turning to the usual way to build property. It does, however, also take a change to how we live and work to make the biggest change.
So, to answer the question, the below are the biggest producers of CO2:
🧱 According to a study completed on behalf of the Building and Social Housing Foundation (now called World Habitat), it takes between 50-80 tonnes of CO2 to build a house.
🔥 The average household emits 2.7 tonnes of CO2 to heat the property every year alone.
🚗 2.4 tonnes of CO2 are used in transport per household per year.
🌽 Diet and agriculture make up 1.6 tonnes of CO2 per year.
✈️ Aviation contributes 1 tonne of CO2 per year to our household emissions
⚡️The electricity we use produces 755kg of CO2 per year.
♻️ 305kg of CO2 is produced from our household waste.
We are aware these will vary on a number of criteria, but the figures given are an indication of averages.
What could you do to reduce the carbon footprint of your household?
