Clean your bills

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What

Switching to renewable energy is one of the most effective things you can do to reduce household emissions.

Renewable energy is made from sources like solar and wind. As it isn’t made from extracting and burning fossil fuels, it keeps our air (and lungs) cleaner. It also helps prevent global heating and extreme weather.

Cleaning your energy supply can cost more, but renewable energy is set to provide over 90% of the world’s electricity over the next 5 years, so costs will come down. It’s worth looking into to see if it suits your budget.

SDG 7 12 13

Benefits

For people
Most crude oil and natural gas comes from Norway, OPEC, Russia, and Qatar, while our coal comes from Russia, Columbia, and the United States. If you live elsewhere, switching from oil and gas to more locally made renewables boosts your local or national economy. This means more jobs as well as cleaner air for the community. Win-win!

For planet
Burning fossil fuels for energy is the biggest cause of the climate crisis.

The UN reckons it’s responsible for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions.

These emissions create a blanket of pollution that wrap around the earth, which heats it up and causes extreme and unpredictable weather patterns.

Anything we can do to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels is a good thing.

How

You’ll be glad to hear that switching energy doesn’t require much effort! Even if you are admin-shy the energy companies make it pretty easy.

Please note, depending on the state of the energy market, it may be best to stay with your current supplier.

Do a little research

Read about different types of green energy on trusted websites. We find this money saving expert article useful. See Ofgem’s current advice. Then check out different energy suppliers - Big Clean Switch have a great directory.

Make the switch

Choose your new provider and off you go! It's not a big job for you, the supplier you are switching to will do most of the work.

Step it up

If switching energy isn't possible at this time, or you’ve already done it (nice work!) why not move your money and invest in a positive future. Many ethical banks even invest in green energy.

References

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes that electricity from sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and hydro and nuclear produces zero carbon dioxide emissions at the point of generation.

Typically, zero carbon electricity purchased by energy suppliers is fed into a National Grid. Customers receive electricity via the National Grid, not directly from zero carbon generators.

Impact metric calculations:

Typical energy consumption per person based on Ofgem (2017), 'Typical Domestic Consumption Values', using Electricity Profile 1. Assumed non-electric heating = medium; electric heating = high

If users don’t know their current type of energy provider, we assume they’re on a standard tariff that reflects the overall energy mix of the grid.

Because most renewable energy providers sell their ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates) on the energy market to other higher carbon-emitting energy suppliers, we can’t count the 100% of the carbon savings as being fully additional. Therefore, we only account for 5% of the total energy savings (this is the portion of ROCs that Good Energy retires from the electricity market).