Do an Audit of Your Lifestyle

I have recently begun monitoring my home electricity usage with a new usage monitor. My electricity supplier here in the UK now provides this unit for free in return for switching my account to paper-free, online statements and the supply of a monthly meter reading for bill calculation.

If puplicity is to be believed, more and more suppliers here in UK are now offering similar deals.

The monitoring is proving to be very enlightening indeed. Calibration can be by CO2 emission, KWH or £, over 1, 7 & 30 days and also allows the setting of a target. I am actually enjoying hitting my target then reducing the next weeks target a little to improve my efficiency.

The most immediate effect was for me to actually start putting only the water needed in the kettle. As the monitor immediately displays actual energy use, as it is used, I can tell you that currently, boiling a kettle here in the UK consumes 2.27 KWH, costs 50p ph & produces 1kg of CO2 per hour. How many times a day do you boil more water than you need?!

I strongly recommend that you check if your supplier, wherever in the world, offers such a monitor and if not, maybe you could kick off a customer action group!

In order to make a change in the world, you must first start with yourself. So the first step is to see what we can do better to reduce energy use, and live a healthier cleaner lifestyle.