This is my current Pawprint, which shows that my carbon footprint is approaching three times the average. I like to think I am “Green”, but clearly I am a hypocrite!
Over two years ago I wrote “What’s your Pawprint?” and this was mine, which felt better, but then this was in the middle of the pandemic so one key area, travel, was almost absent.
Since 2021, then, you can see that a few things have changed. I’ve improved on my carbon footprint (see Pawprint.eco to get yours), including moving house to one with solar panels and much better insulation. The house is also closer to the train station, so recently I also sold a car and am also planning to switch the remaining one to a pure electric one (never a hybrid, please don’t start me on that form of motor industry led hypocrisy).
All good so far, but am sure you noticed the more glaring and negative change. My carbon footprint has still skyrocketed due to travel. As Cait Hewitt noted in a recent Henry Mance interview in the FT:
Half of all aviation emissions are generated by 1 per cent of the population
I’m afraid I’m in that unenviable 1%. About half of the population does not fly each year. 70% of all flights are taken by 15% of the population. By far the worst travel for aviation emissions is long-haul travel, so those of us who fly long-haul and frequently are the worst offenders.
So, I’m a hypocrite. I consciously look to avoid using my car and choose public or active (walking, cycling) transport instead. I live in a “green” house, and my choice of utility company is one that uses only renewable energy. I could go on, but the “and yet” is my air travel, particularly my long-haul travel.
Now, if you do use Pawprint to check your own carbon footprint they ask you questions about the different “paws” on the pawprint. When it comes to travel they ask you to refer to “non-work” travel. To be honest, that feels like a “cop-out” to me, so I included my business travel, which, this year at least, is 100% of my long-haul travel and most of my short haul. The great majority of my work is on video calls to clients, but almost all of those clients are at quite some distance to me internationally and I fly to see most of them at least once or twice each year, hence the long-haul travel.
Of course, I could change the work I do and only work with clients within easy range of train transport to me and always use the train. I could, but I choose not to. I am, therefore, continuing to be a hypocrite on going green on a personal level, though I’m at least honest about this form of hypocrisy.
In closing, I do recommend using Pawprint so you can better understand your own footprint. As my friend and mentor, Suki Laniado Smith always says: “Awareness is the greatest agent for change”. I know the truth of my carbon footprint, so now I can choose whether or not to make changes.
