Carbon footprinting

We need targets! I am so confused about my green efforts that I have decided we need some clear targets, something we can measure and hopefully celebrate when we reach the goal. At the moment I am constantly in doubt whether our efforts are going anywhere, especially because after doing something I often realise that in the process I have managed to be 'ungreen' somewhere else.

For example my parents came for the weekend, they had kindly agreed to give a hand with our rather patchy looking garden, so we spent quite some time trying to make it look as if there actually is some kind of plan to it. Among the jobs were elements that were part of my greener living project, e.g. extending the vegetable plot, so that next year we are all set and ready for lots of homegrown fruit and veg. So far so good. I was quite happy in the knowledge that I was doing something, until I realised that to do these various projects we had also ended up with 6 trips to the local DIY centre and 4 of those trips were by car. How many fruit and veg will I have to grow next year to offset the amount of fuel burnt in one weekend???

The question now is what makes sensible targets.To get me started I thought it would be a good idea to calculate our carbon footprint, at least it should give us some figures to work on.

There are different sites for doing these calculations, but I opted for the calculator on the government website Act on CO2 (http://www.direct.gov.uk/actonco2). I put in all the information to the best of my ability although I didn't have any very accurate information about our gas and electricity usage - we have been in the house for less than half a year and it has been summer, so we don't really know how much will be needed to keep the icicles away from our noses during the winter period.
The calculation was done and the final result was an annual carbon footprint for the household of 12.88 tonnes.

That figure didn't really mean a lot to me, is 12.88 tonnes a lot? Then I almost spat my tea out all over my laptop when I saw the little note saying that the national average is 4.46 tonnes. HELP! Could things really be that bad? Are we in fact some overindulgent family with complete disrespect for the environment?

It took me a good few minutes to gather enough courage to look at the figures again, but then to my relief I realised I was looking at the wrong comparison figure. I think the 4.46 tonnes is the average for an individual. As a matter of fact the comparative figure for a family of our size living in a similar house is 15.48 tonnes. Phew. There is still hope. It looks like we at least have a pale green colour.

I returned to my original plan of setting some targets and realised that the government had very kindly suggested that we should aim for a reduction of 20% followed by a long list of possible actions to take.It was no surprise however that once again I was brought back to the 'no money' issue. Like everywhere else the suggestions included getting more insulation, draft proofing and other options that cost money.

So after due consideration I have decided that my first target should probably be to figure out where we are at the moment. I need to get some gas and electricity readings, I need to check exactly how things are on the insulation front, how much we use the car etc and then I should make a list of the things that we can possibly improve. (Hey, while I am at it why don't I write a business plan, set some KPI's and in a few months I can float my green life on the stock market...)

For now I have saved a copy of the carbon footprint calculation, and once I know where we are heading, I will try it again.