- Home heating & hot water

- Home appliances

- Getting around

- Reduce, re-use, recycle

- In the garden

- Business and community

Energy efficiency measures in your home will often repay your initial investment over a relatively short period of time. If you are already considering making any home improvements it becomes even more economical to include measures to reduce your energy use. Whether you are considering simple steps to reduce electricity or fuel use or drastic measures to reduce energy loss and provide your own energy, there is a great deal of help available.

Some simple measures are outlined below to act as a starting point in making your home more energy efficient. Also listed are a number of excellent online resources that will provide you with more detailed and specific information.

Home heating & hot water

- Weatherise your home or apartment, using weather stripping to plug air leaks around doors and windows.

- Insulating your walls and ceilings can save 20 to 30 percent of home heating bills and reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 1 tonne per year. Second Nature produce natural insulation from wool.

- For colder climates insulation is particularly important. Further measures such as replacing ordinary windows with argon filled, double-glazed windows can save a further 2.4 tonnes of CO2 per year.

- Painting your house in darker colours can reduce energy usage in colder climates (lighter colours in hotter climates).

- You could switch your energy supplier to one that uses renewable sources of generation. Good Energy offer this service online.

- For the more ambitious there is solar heating - this works by supplementing your existing heating. Often grants are available for installation - see www.dti.gov.uk.

- Ensure that all of your heating appliances are dust free. Energy is lost when heating units have to work harder to draw air through dirty filters. Cleaning a dirty air conditioner filter can save 5 percent of the energy used.

- Wrap your boiler in an insulating jacket and save as much as 500 kgCO2 emissions per year.

- Use low-flow shower heads and save up to 200 kgCO2 per year in a busy household.

Home appliances

- A really simple way to make a difference is to use energy saving light bulbs - these have come down in price a lot recently, and are now available in sizes shorter than conventional bulbs (so they fit old lampshades!).

Although they still cost more initially, they save money by using only 1/4 the energy of an ordinary incandescent bulb and lasting up to 12 times longer. Only 10 percent of the energy consumed by a normal light bulb generates light. The rest just makes the bulb hot. www.yourwelcome.co.uk offer low prices on energy efficient lighting.

- Refrigerators are responsible for about 20% of Household electricity use. Use a thermometer to set your refrigerator temperature as close to the recommended 1-4 degrees C and your freezer as close to

-18 degrees C as possible. Defrost your freezer regularly and ensure that the seal your refrigerator/freezer door is clear and will and sealed tightly.

- Use your washing machine on the warm (40 deg C) setting whenever possible and hang washing out to dry rather than using drying machines. Ensure that you always have an optimum load in your washing machine.

- Wash your dishes manually, or ensure your dishwasher is full when you run it. Allow your dishes to air dry, by not using the heat in the drying cycle can save 20 percent of your dishwasher's total electricity use.

- Make sure your thermostat is set to a reasonable temperature, 21 degrees C is the recommended comfortable room temperature. Each 10 degree reduction saves 1/4 tonne of CO2 per year for an electric water heater.

- Choose the most energy-efficient models when you replace your old appliances and only buy appliances that suit your typical needs rather than oversized appliances that will waste energy. An excellent resource for choosing energy efficient appliances is http://www.est.org.uk/myhome/

Getting around

- Where possible walk or bike to your destination. Fuel use through transport constitutes a large proportion of total UK emissions. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk

- Use public transport. Travelling the same distance by train you can cut emissions by 3 times that of travelling by car.

- When purchasing a car look for the newer generation of cleaner engines, with high mileage and innovations such as duel fuel cells and ultra low emissions.

- You can travel with the carbon balanced Travel-Nation who also operate

www.roundtheworldinsurance.co.uk.

Reduce, re-use, recycle

- Cut down on waste by reducing packaging on items that you purchase. Re-use shopping bags and go to local producers to avoid heavily packaged items.

- Recycle glass, metals, plastics and paper. For every kilogram of waste you recycle, you save energy and reduce emissions of CO2 by at least 1 kilogram. Making products with recycled materials, instead of having to process them from raw materials, uses up to 55% less energy for paper products, 33% less energy for glass, and a whopping 90% less for aluminium.

In the garden

- Get rid of the petrol mower - old 2 stroke mowers produce as many pollutants as 40 cars, and huge amounts of fuel are spilled each year from filling them - in the US the same amount of petrol is spilled each year from mowers, as was in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster. Switch to an electric mower, or even better a mechanical push one (although this will depend on the size of your lawn!)

- Remember that a lot of carbon is contained within soil - activities like ploughing can release a lot of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere.

- For some organic gardening ideas see www.crocus.co.uk

- Solar lighting kits are now cheaply available - these have the advantage of saving energy, and not requiring any wires - see www.cmsgardens.co.uk for some examples.

Business and community

- Encourage your employer to implement emissions reductions policies. As a starting point why not refer them to the business carbon balanced website: http://www.carbonbalanced.org/corporate/index.htm

- Green plants in the office help absorb pollutants, and improve your working environment - Enterprise Plants specialise in supplying plants to companies. www.enterpriseplants.com.

- Switch off lights and unused computers - one computer (standby rating 6.9watts) wastes 60 kWh per year.

- Don't throw away your old printer cartridges - collect and recycle them (and help the World Land Trust at the same time!). Green Agenda operate a printer cartridge collection service. which can be arranged through the World Land Trust.