My New Year green resolutions for 2025 – Part One
Tis the season for making New Year’s resolutions so environment expert Ron Fox, of Noreus Ltd, gives the first two of his green suggestions to help the UK reduce our carbon footprint. Over the following three weeks he will provide five more ideas.
Make power cheaper: My first resolution to help the UK cut its CO2 emissions is to reduce the price of household electricity.
The government Climate Change Committee (CCC) said this move should be a top priority as it would encourage more people to go out and buy electric cars and get heat pumps. “This is a very sensible idea,” said Ron, “as the amount UK residents paid for electricity was higher than anywhere else in the European Union last year.”
Ron said there were two ways the government could reduce bills. Firstly, by converting the electricity grid to using totally clean power by 2030 which could cut £27 a year off a household energy bill for a typical electricity consumer.
The National Energy System Operator (Neso) said this would be a huge challenge and would require an expansion of energy networks not seen since the 1960s, but they believed it was achievable.
The second way, said Ron, would be to reduce standing charges, a price paid by consumers before they even use any electricity.
Standing charges for domestic electricity customers have increased significantly since 2021. As an example, a customer who pays by direct debit have seen their bills more than double from £86 a year to £186 per year on average.
Research by the energy regulator, Ofgem, has shown that 5.5 million low-income households could save at least £35 a year if the standing charges were reduced by 50 per cent and the cost were to be added to the unit cost of power. But those who used more energy could find their energy bills going up by £27 a year.
Already Britain has cut its carbon emissions by half, but the committee said this move would help meet a UN deadline of reducing emissions by 81 per cent by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. The UK aims to reach net zero by 2050 and to produce 100 per cent of its electricity from clean sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power by 2030.
Ron said he was delighted to read that the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, is to hold talks with Ofgem about ways to reduce standing charges for consumers.
Bin pointless packaging: My second resolution is for the supermarket industry to cut down on unnecessary plastic packaging and use sustainable alternatives. “It adds up to 29.8 billion pieces of avoidable plastic every year, the equivalent to more than 1,000 per household,” said Ron. “Especially as the UK was the worst for excess packaging among six European countries which were analysed in a report by Retail Economics and the packaging company DS Smith.”
The other five countries were France, Poland, Germany, Spain and Italy with France having the lowest plastic usage of those countries.
They found the worst items in the British shopping trolley were processed foods such as ready meals, breads and other carbohydrates and dairy products. In the UK 70 per cent of the products in the study were wrapped in plastic with 51 per cent of the packaging deemed replaceable by more sustainable packaging or removed entirely as in the case of fruit and veg such as oranges, mushrooms and broccoli.
For more advice on green energy and recycling contact Ron Fox, of Noreus Ltd which is based at Keele University’s Science and Innovation Park, on 0845 474 6641 or go to www.noreus.co.uk. In the meantime, have a happy and peaceful New Year.
Part 2 next week.
Caption: The UK was the worst for excess packaging among six European countries.
