Carbon Literacy Pledge - Chloe

I completed Carbon Literacy Training in August 2023. My carbon footprint was high and although I was a bit ashamed, I wasn’t surprised.

In the 12 months prior to completing the quiz, I’d been on an unusual number of short holidays trying to scratch the travel itch that built up during lockdown which explains why 45% of my footprint came from travel. Besides these flights I barely drive, maybe once a week but normally I choose to travel by train and would rather get the train to the office than drive.

I’ve already been on less flights and have less holidays booked this year. Because of this I felt like the biggest change I could make would not be in this category. I decided to focus on food which makes up 33% of my footprint, instead.

As I already follow a vegetarian diet, I decided to focus on reducing the amount of food I purchase when out, particularly focusing on lunches when I’m in the office. When I made the pledge in August 2023, I was coming into the office twice a week and on those two days I was buying a pre-packaged meal deal, which worked out around 96 sandwiches, packets of crisps and drinks per year.

According to research carried out by the University of Manchester, the average carbon footprint or a readymade cheese ploughman’s sandwich is 1,112g CO2, so two of these per week would be 2,224g CO2 and around 106,752g of CO2 per year. PepsiCo estimates that the average carbon footprint of a packet of Walkers crisps is 80g of CO2 which per year would be 7,680g of CO2. The average carbon footprint of a bottle of soft drink is 120g of CO2 according to various sources, each year would be 11,520g of CO2.Therefore, not buying meal deals twice a week would save an estimated 125,952g (126kg) of CO2.

I pledged to bring lunch from home rather than buy prepackaged food on my office days, this also had the added benefit of reducing food waste as I normally bring leftovers from my tea the previous evening.

Now, I normally only come into the office once a week but I’m still making sure I bring in lunch from home rather than popping over to Tesco, which is still a saving of around 63kg of CO2 saved per year. As they say, every little helps!

Why not calculate your carbon footprint and let us know what changes you'll make by completing our tracker.