Mumsnet mums and ‘The Carbon Challenge’

This summer we challenged four Mumsnetters and their families to reduce their carbon footprint and blog about their experience online. Not only did they manage to reduce their carbon footprint they also saved themselves a packet. 

Each family was footprinted by our carbon experts and then we set them a series of carbon-cutting challenges, from shopping for the Carbon Reduction Label to cooking and eating in a more carbon-friendly way.

Our Carbon Challengers posted regularly on the Mumsnet site about their experiences and took part in an online Q&A with Euan Murray from the Carbon Trust. All the mums managed to reduce their families’ carbon footprints - one by as much as 44%. They also on course to save themselves around £95 a year each on their energy bills.   

Michelle Park, Maidstone, Kent

One of the Mumsnetters was Michelle Parks, a 31-year old married mum, who lives in Maidstone, Kent with her two daughters, aged 5 and 3. Michelle works part time for a bank and spends the rest of her time ferrying her girls, Ellie and Hattie, from school to preschool and afterschool.  She spends a large chunk of her life acting as a mum-come-taxi driver, so not surprisingly she welcomes the chance to catch up with friends every couple of weeks - minus the children.

When Michelle cooks, her eldest daughter often does the recycling job for her mum – so it would seem she’s got a budding environmentalist on her hands!  Ellie is just finishing reception at school and apparently she now knows everything related to the environment – so, according to her mum, they have to follow strict recycling rules set by her.

Michelle wanted to get involved in the scheme partly to find out what her footprint was, compared to the 'average' person, and partly because she feels that green issues will become a greater priority for her family as time goes by and we need to find new ways of preserving what we have. When asked how she got on, she said, ‘The challenges were simple but effective and we discovered that some of the food we eat has a higher carbon footprint than we expected so we can now think about alternatives. I was really surprised when I found out that we had a higher footprint during half term compared to the school-run weeks.  Discovering the Carbon Reduction Label means I can shop with that in mind - although it would be great if more companies could join the scheme!’

Heather Chambers, Glasgow, Scotland

Heather Chambers is a mum to three-year-old Charlie. In the week she’s a full-time telecoms engineer. And at the weekends she spends a lot of time visiting family across the length and breadth of the country - from Arbroath to the North East of England.

Heather didn’t know a lot about carbon footprinting – ‘it’s one of those ‘buzz’ words you hear on the TV and so on, but never really know what it is’ - but when she saw the Carbon Footprint logo on Mumsnet she was intrigued to find out how she could reduce hers. She was surprised to find out how much of her footprint was down to the food she ate – the way it’s grown, processed, cooked and even disposed of when we throw it away.

‘One of the biggest surprises for me was that how much energy you can save just by putting lids on pans when you’re cooking, and your food cooks quicker – it’s a win, win scenario.’

She adds that her family didn’t have to make any great sacrifices, they just had to become more aware or doing the little things, like turning lights off and not leaving the TV on standby and putting jumpers on instead of raising the central heating. She was pleased to see she saved quite a bit of money too. The Challenge helped her realise that even making small changes can have a bit impact. 

Elizabeth Amias, Leicester

Since having her first boy, Will, three years ago, Elizabeth has been a full-time mum. She says that she and her husband have always tried to practice a green way of living, but since having Will they’ve been less diligent on account of a busy family life. One thing they noticed when they started the Challenge was that they found it was quite difficult to “look for the Label” because they did so much of their shopping online. She says, ‘It would be useful if Tesco put it on the website as well’.

As well as hoping to be greener, Elizabeth also wanted to cut their fuel bills – so that provided her with two incentives to take action. She says taking the challenge got her to start setting the water heater to come on at certain times in the day and turn the temperature down a few degrees.  She also started making sure their computers were turned off when they weren’t being used, halved the number of times a day she used the washing machine by doing fewer but fuller loads and was more diligent about turning off the lights around the house.