Butcher Facebook feeds
Approximate investment: $0
Payoff period: from the day you start shopping
Emissions reduction: 952.6 kg co2 equivalent per year
Signing up to butcher Facebook feeds is a great way to save money and reduce your emissions.
Butchers often run specials on Facebook that allow you to plan your shopping ahead. I found that using multiple butchers’ feeds allowed me to cut down my meat expense from $44 per week to around $18 per week, a saving of 59%.
Buying meat on special means there is less waste. It also means you gravitate towards the cheaper meats that the butcher can afford to discount. Often these are meats such as pork and chicken, which have a lower carbon footprint.
Let’s assume a two person household consumes 121 kg of meat per year. This equates to around 330g per day. Switching from a diet spread equally across lamb, beef, pork and chicken to one more concentrated on pork and chicken would save 952.6 kg co2 equivalent emissions per year.
To do this, all you have to do is like 3 or 4 local butchers’ Facebook feeds and pin them to the top of your feed, so you can see when specials are announced.
Thermal underwear
Approximate investment: $80
Payoff period: Less than 1 winter month
Emissions reduction: 1,037 kg co2 equivalent across 4 winter months
After four weeks of using butcher Facebook specials, you should be able to afford some thermal underpants for your family for winter.
When Australian journalist Greg Foyster pointed this out, I did a double-take. We spend too much energy concentrating on heating spaces, when we could be insulating our bodies directly for a fraction of the price.
This led to an experiment where providing my family with thermals contributed to cutting down on winter energy consumption by 487 kWh in a single month.
Making stock from meat bones and leftover vegetables
Approximate investment: $0
Payoff period: from the day you start cooking
Emissions reduction: difficult to estimate, around 260 kg co2 equivalent per year
Making home made stock is a great way to stretch your household shopping budget even further and create more meals for less input. It also ties in neatly with winter.
The EAT Lancet diet has been recommended by scientists and involves dramatically cutting down on each individual’s consumption of meat, treating meat as a garnish rather than the centre of a meal. One way to achieve this easily is to use the bones from meat to provide additional nourishment during the week.
The bones from a 1.2kg chicken carcass can easily provide 2kg of stock. This could cover 8 additional servings per week at almost no extra cost.
Build a home compost system
Approximate investment: $50
Payoff period: 6 months (depending on council rates)
Emissions reduction: difficult to estimate
By the end of winter, you should now have over $1000 extra in your back pocket. It’s time to invest some of that in some eco-initiatives that will set you up for further long term savings.
Let’s start with the cheap ones. Setting up a composting system, in our case a worm farm, is an easy way to cut down on waste collection costs.
In Kapiti, waste collection isn’t cheap. A council rubbish bag can cost $4.60 and tends to go up over time.
Home composting allows you to strip your rubbish bag of all compostible matter. A study undertaken by the Feilding Council revealed that around 40% of the contents of rubbish bags were unnecessarily going to landfill.
By cutting down on the annual number of rubbish bags required, a home compost should save you an extra $95.68 per year, assuming you started with going through one rubbish bag per week.
Prices of waste collection will vary depending on the collection costs of your council.
Build a square foot garden
Approximate investment: $130
Payoff period: one growing season
Emissions reduction: difficult to estimate
Once you’ve built up enough home made compost, you can start planning how you are going to use it. One good way is to build a square foot garden.
Square foot gardens are raised beds designed for maximum productivity with little maintenance. Two gardens should be enough to provide vegetables for one adult each day of the growing season.
Finance an ebike
Approximate investment: $3500 cash, but can currently be purchased on 0% interest finance
Payoff period: 1-6 years
Emissions reduction: 643 kg co2 equivalent to 2145 kg co2 equivalent per year
The return on investment you get from an ebike will depend on how often you use it, how far you travel, and whether you can save on parking costs if you work at a city centre.
The most important thing is to choose an ebike that is fit for purpose, and that has quality components that don’t break down or cause functional problems over time. I have found my current Shimano Etoro to be very reliable and I have travelled over 7000 kilometres on it.
If you can save on inner city parking costs using an ebike, it is likely you will pay for the bike in less than a year. The upper end of 6 years’ return is based on travelling 100 km per week for shorter trips. Results will vary depending on how you use it.
Note that by accepting an offer of low interest finance you can sometimes receive an ebike that is cost neutral. This calculation can vary heavily depending on your usage, so double and triple check your calculation before committing to a purchase and always choose reliable equipment. Also note your usage may change over time, which will affect the return from your investment.
Install an HRV system
Approximate investment: Varies, in our case came to $3400 for installation
Payoff period: 5.82 years (Will vary depending on household)
Emissions reduction: Varies, but in our case about 840 kg co2 equivalent per year
Another way to reduce your winter energy consumption is to install an HRV system. This does not need to be an HRV brand system.
HRV systems work by circulating warm air stored in the roof with cooler air stored in the lower building. The result is a more temperate environment for a lower heating or cooling cost. The system functions best at times of year when the discrepancy between roof space temperature and indoor temperature is at its greatest. This is often during the months leading up to and trailing off from winter.
HRV systems are available on finance at low rates of interest and are sometimes worth it, but due to low-ish and fluctuating returns, will not be cash neutral.
The above payoff period calculation assumes that an HRV system will save a household 4.9 kWh per average day and that retail energy prices will increase by 3.2% per annum.
Note that there is also a cost of replacing filters included in the calculation, which will vary depending on the supplier.
Invest in a vehicle with low fuel consumption per hundred kilometres
Approximate investment: $8500
Payoff period: 8.6 years
Emissions reduction: 1043 kg co2 equivalent per year
For some jobs, travel by car is unavoidable. In this situation it is essential to invest in a car that achieves the lowest consumption of fuel per hundred kilometres, relative to what you can afford for the purchase cost.
For this sort of decision, it is sometimes worth looking at the second hand hybrid market. At present, it is possible to buy a hybrid with a 4.0 litres per hundred kilometres consumption rate for less than $10000, although note that second hand cars bought by private sale may sometimes include hidden defects and should be properly inspected prior to purchase. Note also that cars bought by private sale will have to be paid in cash.
The car I own now is a Honda CR-Z that I bought for $8500. Taking into account petrol price inflation, the car will achieve an 11.64% return on investment, better than many high performing stocks on the NZX.
The idea behind all of this is that reducing carbon emissions is a straightforward process that can add thousands in retirement savings per year. Using the above steps and just moving from small and cost-effective challenges to bigger propositions and challenges I’ve increased my savings by over $5,000 per year. I’m constantly on the lookout for new ways to reduce emissions that are also good household investments. So if you know of any please hit me up in the comments section below.