Green

Eco Homes – Reduce Your Impact on Our Environment

Climate change and environmental effects are much talked about topics today. We hear of carbon footprints, greenhouse gases and carbon offsetting all the time. The question is what can you do to help? The best place to start would be right at home.

Start off with the easy things. It doesn’t have to involve drastic changes. They are as simple as:

– Walking to the local grocery
– Turn off lights
– Wash clothes at low temperatures
– Turn appliances off, not on standby
– Call instead of sending cards
– Use material you have at home instead of buying wrapping paper
– Take your own bags when going out shopping

You can even consider turning your house into a power station. Ingenious ways to conserve energy include using resources such as wind power, solar power, rain water harvesting, a ground source heat pump and insulation, to name a few.

Soon, governments will force you to reduce your carbon footprint, introducing environmental policies. One such Carbon Credit Scheme rewards those using less carbon and penalizing households with low energy efficiency. Poor eco homes ratings could also make your house re-sale value fairly low.

In Scotland and England, an eco homes assessment gives new houses a rating based on their environmental impact. The criteria for the assessment include internal factors as well as any potential external factors as well. Categories that are assessed include: energy, transport, pollution, materials, water, land use, ecology, health and wellbeing and management.