JEREMY Watson thought he was a model citizen with impeccable green credentials. He recycled old newspapers and wine bottles and usually took the bus to work. It took a visit from the carbon police before he finally saw the light.
I KNEW the game was up as soon as we walked into the kitchen. I flicked a switch and on came four dazzling halogen spotlights. A second switch and four more flooded us with light. A third switch kicked four more into life and a fourth put on the fina
l display of eight.
Twenty floodlights in one small kitchen and a light show you could play a football international under.
I must admit, the lighting was one of the features that sold us the house when we bought it 18 months ago. No one wants to chop their onions and prepare their cordon bleu offerings in the gloom.
To his credit, Phil Say didn't utter a word. His expression didn't change. He just took a note and sauntered out to take in the rest of the house, although I'm sure I detected a slightly raised eyebrow. I decided to keep schtum as well. He would find out soon enough that my house, my castle, my pride and joy, has a total of 80 halogen spots illuminating living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, halls and landings. We could give the Festival Theatre a run for its money.
What I didn't know then was that my carbon hell was only just beginning. Say, who was working for carbon audit company Carbon Accounting, had appeared that morning to put my lifestyle and my profligate use of energy under the microscope.
Like many other homeowners, I am keen to do my bit for the planet by keeping down the emissions of carbon dioxide gases that we know are adding to the phenomenon of global warming. Although we don't like to admit it, the home and our travel arrangements are every individual's largest contribution to what political leaders claim is the biggest threat to the future of our planet.
I already recycle as much as I can, diligently sorting newspapers, bottles and cardboard into their separate containers for fortnightly collection by my local council. I spend most of my evenings running around the house switching off the lights and appliances left on by two carefree teenage daughters, although that's as much to do with saving me money as saving the planet. I even take the bus six miles to work (on the days I can't persuade my wife to drop me off in our family car on her way to work).
So how bad could my carbon profile be? The answer: much worse than I could have possibly imagined.
To formulate my profile, Say added the direct CO2 emissions I produce in my house and in my transport arrangements - those I have direct control over - to my indirect emissions. This is the CO2 produced in getting my food and other purchases to the shops for me to buy and those produced by the public services I use.
The result was grim reading. "Your current footprint is equivalent to 19 tonnes CO2 per annum as compared with the UK average of 11 tonnes per annum," Say said. "Your direct component is 14 tonnes, compared with a UK average of six."
It's official, then. I am a carbon criminal, but can I mend my ways? Do I shrug my shoulders and carry on regardless - after all, it's future generations who will bear the brunt of climate change - or should I redouble, or re-treble, my efforts to cut my carbon emissions? And if I do, is there any assistance out there to help me achieve my goals?
Reducing our carbon footprint, defined as a measure of the amount of greenhouse gases directly or indirectly emitted as a result of our everyday activities and usually expressed in equivalent tonnes of CO2, is becoming a national obsession because of the threat of climate change. Scientists argue that our rapidly changing weather patterns, already being experienced as heavier rainfall and more violent storms in Scotland, are symptomatic of the bigger changes to come.
Everyone, or so it seems, is trying to do it. Celebrities are queuing up to "offset" their emissions by investing in forests abroad or renewable energy schemes. Businesses throughout Scotland are investing in energy-saving schemes and alternative forms of energy. Five MSPs, including former First Minister Jack McConnell, have teamed up with Friends of the Earth Scotland to go through similar carbon "audits" and see what improvements can be made in a year.
This weekend's T in the Park claims to be the world's largest "carbon neutral" festival, with organisers trying to take steps to reduce emissions caused by its activities to zero. A series of Live Earth concerts were held at eight locations around the world, including Wembley Stadium, yesterday, to highlight the message that everyone should be involved in fighting global warming.
At a national level, the UK government is recommending a 20% reduction in Britain's carbon footprint by 2020. Environment groups believe much bigger cuts are necessary if the world is to tackle global warming before major changes become irreversible. Both are advocating that each individual should take some responsibility for reducing their emissions as a contribution towards the national effort.
Individual carbon footprints are generated by heating, lights, computers, TVs and hi-fis, other electrical gadgets, fridges, freezers, generation of waste, commuting to work, holiday travel and many other everyday activities. An audit involves putting all of these up for critical examination by experts.
The audit can now be done online through Scottish-based companies such as Carbon Accountable. But Phil Say decided to see the whites of my eyes and took a personal tour of my home.
Apart from the profusion of lights - the housebuilder clearly had shares in ScottishPower - he clocked the 10-year-old washing machine, the inefficient central heating boiler, and the inadequate loft insulation. It was "not well laid [many gaps] and half of the thickness it should be", another black mark there for the developer.
He noticed that lights and appliances were frequently left on, even in empty rooms, there were no low-energy light bulbs anywhere on the premises and standard fluorescent light tubes in the garage. In addition, appliances were often left on in stand-by mode (a conventional TV still consumes 15-20 watts of electricity while on standby) and phone chargers were still plugged in even though they had done their job.
There were some positives. The boiler is serviced regularly; radiators are not covered or obstructed, they have individual thermostats, windows are double-glazed and draught-proofed and there is cavity wall insulation. Our kettle has a window and gauge allowing us to put in just the amount of water we need; unwanted water in a full kettle is enough to run an energy-saving light bulb for nine hours.
But the upshot is gas consumption of 13,025 kilowatt-hours and a further 3,050 kWh of electricity. That adds up to whopping energy bills and the production of around 3.8 tonnes of CO2 per annum individually and 15 tonnes for the whole household.
Transport came next. An average annual mileage of about 12,000 in our first car and 6,000 in our newly acquired second adds another 5.6 tonnes of CO2. Around 10 individual short-haul flights per year contributes a further 2.6 tonnes and one long-haul one contributes 1.8.
With an estimated 208 bags of rubbish thrown out every year by our family of four adding another 0.2 tonnes, the total for direct emission alone comes to a staggering 14 tonnes. With the indirect tonnage of five added, that makes 19 tonnes, eight more than the national average.
As Say made clear: "Your current footprint would need to drop by 3.8 tonnes of CO2 per annum to meet the government's target."
With the national average for direct emissions (six tonnes) realistically out of reach in the short term, Say recommended getting my personal 14 tonnes down to 11 over the next 12 months and then striving for a more "respectable" target year by year.
To achieve this, he suggested cutting gas and electricity consumption, reducing short-haul flights, taking more trains, using the car less and cutting the amount of household waste generated. The question is: how?
It's a complicated recipe with at least 37 ingredients. Most involve common sense, such as the short-term, cost-free measures of turning off the heating for longer periods, keeping doors closed in heated rooms, shutting the curtains in winter and turning down the boiler thermostat by 1°C (a potential saving of £40 per year). I will try "encouraging family to wear more pullovers" but that is likely to fall on deaf ears.
Other longer-term measures - laying more loft insulation and replacing the boiler with a more efficient condenser combi version - will have an initial cost but the outlay should soon be recouped in energy and financial savings.
Then there are those lights. All could be switched to energy-saving halogen bulbs, which cost five times as much to buy but last eight times as long and only use 20% of the electricity. All other normal incandescent bulbs could also be switched to low-energy versions. In the longer term, I'm asked to replace all those halogen spots with alternatives, a cost I may have to bear if I want to get serious about reducing my carbon profligacy.
A change in habits is also required, such as always ensuring lights and appliances are switched off in empty rooms and never left on stand-by. Mobile phone chargers should be unplugged when not is use. Take showers instead of baths - a hard sell to my wife - to use four times less energy required in heating up the water.
Part of the package will be cutting down on the number of holiday flights I take and reducing the mileage I travel by car. Recycling efforts should be redoubled and I should consider buying more locally produced, seasonal food, especially vegetables. Producing meat creates large amounts of both CO2 and methane, another important greenhouse gas.
Carbon Accountable, which helps homeowners reduce their carbon emissions, was set up by Gordon Archer, a former political adviser working at the Scottish Parliament. Those who log on to the firm's website can open a carbon 'account' through completing an online questionnaire.
A carbon 'profile', similar to the one produced for me by Phil Say, is then created and a course of action to reduce emissions over time recommended.
But those who wish to take immediate action can also purchase 'carbon credits' to offset their carbon emissions. These cost £12 per tonne of CO2 and the money is invested in projects which reduce emissions through increased energy efficiency, avoid carbon emissions or capture carbon in newly planted forestry schemes, which have been independently verified as genuine.
Under the Carbon Accountable scheme, the credits are purchased in projects in developing countries which have not signed the international Kyoto protocol on tackling climate change and which have no targets to reduce their carbon emissions.
Archer insists that cutting carbon is a "journey, not an event".
"You are not going to get to your target of reducing by 20% quickly, so carbon credits are a way of taking immediate action," he says. "They are not an excuse for inaction - they should only be used as part of a reduction programme. But they are a way for all of us to offset some of the damage we do today whilst working on a more sustainable way of living in future.
"Our experience is that people do want to make a contribution but they don't always know how to go about it and they get overwhelmed by the complexity. But even doing small things like changing to energy-saving light bulbs makes a huge difference if it is multiplied many times over."
