The key opportunity that has come to light through the pandemic, is the love that the British people have for accurate facts and figures that are easily assimilated. For example charts, pyramids, rolling totals. The other key feature is the desire by the many to be part of the societal collective to help. Many people are now becoming inclined to reduce the carbon footprint they create to “help save the planet” Many like myself know that we should reduce beef consumption and increase plant based food. I know that my led lightbulbs are better for the planet but a lot of knowledge is sketchy and does not allow for comparative judgements and decisions. It is difficult currently to know if reducing single use plastics is as helpful as not taking a 50 mile journey in a car. Or is a holiday in an aircraft to Italy for example a larger carbon footprint than shopping in a supermarket every weekend buying prepackaged goods. The high street versus an amazon delivery? What is the carbon footprint of buying an artichoke from a greengrocer in February? If I pave my front garden for a car park how many trees should I plant to offset this? The list goes on and it is all unclear. I think it would be good public policy to develop a unit of measurement of a carbon footprint. Better still if this could be global. This would then make things much easier to compare. To exemplify: One 50 mile car journey in a 1000cc car has a 10 unit footprint, this could be offset by substituting buying beef for a meal at 4 units twice a week and turning heating off for a hour saving 2 units. etc etc. Building from this principle a chart could be developed, a rubrik, a system of awareness, where people could make informed choices to aid in reducing their own footprint. In the alcohol consumption comparison chart we have all learnt the nominal number of units we should not exceed for good health. Could there also be a nominal limit for carbon footprints – it would all help increase the awareness. And remember we have learnt through the pandemic how our citizens love to help and love to be part of the solution. This would also, then lead to an opportunity to create more detailed apps that allocate everything a carbon footprint score, for those who were more keen to manage accurately their total footprint. Further still, on the back of this increased knowledge within our society, public policy could reward people for making low carbon choices to incentivise this action. An example of this that comes to mind is a lower energy cost for households that use the lowest level of energy. all helping to bring down the Uk figure.
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