WHAT'S your carbon footprint?

After the Christmas excess of blazing open fires, ovens burning, lights shining brightly and paper everywhere, it's time to cut down on the waste.

And knowing the scale of your emissions is the first step to reducing them.

It is my ambition that boasting about how carbon fit we are will be the new way of keeping up with the Joneses in 2007.

Rather than having guilt trips about carbon diets or fretting about carbon rationing, it is more enjoyable to calculate our energy carbon footprint and have fun making it slimmer and fitter. A bonus is that making our carbon footprint healthier often results in our being healthier physically. But we need a simple means of calculating what our footprint actually is.

Most people want to cut back but are at a loss to know how to take action to reduce their own footprint. Confusingly, there are dozens of ways in which carbon footprints are calculated.

My preference is to keep it to those things that are easily measurable by people in their day-today lives and to give guidance on those issues that really require detailed academic research, such as how to calculate how much carbon was created in putting our particular stuffed turkey onto the dinner plate.

As a home eco-auditor, I get people to calculate how much electricity, gas, heating oil, coal, petrol or diesel they used and the return flights that they took in the previous year. Simple calculations then convert these figures into tonnes of carbon dioxide and their energy carbon footprint for the year.

Almost everything we do in life, from breathing to using water or buying furniture to eating food will result in carbon dioxide emissions.

The essential message is that wasteful consumption leads to increased levels of carbon dioxide, which is leading to climate catastrophe. One way of getting this across is to start measuring the amount of water people have used and the amount of un-recycled rubbish they dumped in the previous year.

Last October the Stern Report graphically set out the economic threat posed by climate change, not to mention the humanitarian and environmental devastation.

But with government complacency paramount, it is up to us individuals to show what can be done. In carrying out home and business eco-audits, I come across an enormous range of carbon footprints in my domestic clients, ranging from the highest, at 66 tonnes for a well-off family with a swimming pool, to the lowest, with an astonishingly small 1.7 tonnes for the entire family of the British Friends of the Earth press officer Neil Verlander, which eclipsed what I thought was my own excellent energy carbon footprint this year of half a tonne for my home and 1.8 tonnes for flying.

Thus over 75% of my emissions were made up of three flights, one for work, one for a yoga holiday and one to see a sick family member. The average household emissions is 6.2 tonnes.

The following sections will show you whether you need a carbon fitness diet or are already carbon fit:

ELECTRICITY HOW TO CALCULATE IT Electricity production emits 40% of carbon emissions worldwide due to burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas in power stations to produce it. To find out your electricity carbon footprint, look at your electricity bills for the past year to see how many kilowatt hours you have used. The figures will have kwh beside them and you subtract the reading for the start of the year from the reading at the end of the year. Then simply multiply this figure by 0.43 and it will give you your footprint in kg of CO 2.Thus for example if your bills say you used the average household 5,200kwh in the past year, the calculation would be as follows:

5,200kwh x 0.43 = 2,200kg = 2.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

HOW TO REDUCE IT The easiest ways to slim this down would be to switch to energy-savings bulbs and ensure that the timer for your electric immersion heater is set to the shortest time practical. And avoid the green plague of halogen lighting.

GAS/OIL HOW TO CALCULATE IT Gas and oil emit far less carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour than electricity, but because they heat your home and water, both of which take large amounts of energy, they usually contribute a larger amount to your carbon excess fat.

To calculate your gas footprint, again look at the past year's bills and see how many kwh of gas you used. You then multiply this figure by 0.19. Thus if you have the average household gas consumption of 33,500kwh, the calculation would be as follows:

33,500kwh x 0.19 = 6,400kg = 6.4 tonnes.

If you used 2,000 litres of oil, the calculation would be:

2,000 x 2.68 = 5,360kg = 5.4 tonnes.

For 2.5 tonnes of coal, the calculation would be:

2.5 x 2.42 = 6,000kg = 6 tonnes.

HOW TO REDUCE IT Hyper-insulate your roof, doors, walls and windows. Turn the room heating thermostat down to 190C and, most importantly, ensure that you are heating only the rooms you are occupying. If your gas boiler is over 15 years old, installing a new condensing boiler would cut your emissions by a figure-hugging 30%.

CAR USE HOW TO CALCULATE IT Surface transport contributes over 20% of our carbon dioxide emissions. Much of this is due to private car use. The average motorist drives over 10,000 miles a year and the calculation is as follows:

10,000 miles x 3.6 = 36,000 = 3.6 tonnes.

HOW TO REDUCE IT Use a bicycle for journeys under four miles and if you have to have a car, ensure that when you change it, you exchange it for the lowest emissions in the smallest class of car required for your needs. Different makes of cars, even within the same class, can actually use up to 30% less in carbon dioxide emissions.

FLIGHTS HOW TO CALCULATE IT Flights constitute a small percentage of emissions. But this obscures the fact that, for the rich, flights contribute a huge amount of their carbon unfitness. A flight to New York contributes 1.2 tonnes, while a flight to Japan uses two tonnes.

New Zealanders emit a whopping 4.2 tonnes to fly home.

With budget airlines causing an explosion in flying, emissions are expected to double in the next 30 years, thus requiring even more dramatic cuts in other emissions, if we are to avoid irreversible climate disaster.

HOW TO REDUCE IT Long-haul flights for long weekends should be avoided if at all possible, while replacing short-haul flights to nearby continental countries with train journeys will cut emissions by up to 90%. The Carbon Neutral website will provide emissions between almost every airport worldwide, while the National Energy Foundation website converts miles flown into tonnes of carbon dioxide.

NON-DIRECT ENERGY EMISSIONS While the above constitutes our measurable, direct-energy carbon footprint, this does not mean that other sources of emissions should be ignored. For example, pumping water around the country creates carbon emissions.

Similarly, meat consumption has a massive carbon footprint, with methane and other emissions from cows and livestock contributing over 18% to global emissions.

Donnachadh McCarthy is the author of 'Saving the Planet Without Costing the Earth' (Vision Paperbacks), and works as a home and business ecoauditor www.3acorns. co. uk Your annual carbon/eco footprint 1. ELECTRICITY METER READING Reading this year:

Less reading last year:

Total number of kwh for year:

Multiply by 0.42 to get kg CO 2emitted:

Divide this figure by 1,000 to get the number of tonnes of CO 2emitted:

2. GAS METER READING Reading this year:

Less reading last year:

Total kwh for year:

Multiply by 0.19 to get kg CO 2emitted:

Divide this figure by 1,000 to get the number of tonnes of CO 2emitted:

(Note: for litres of heating oil multiply by 2.68 and for tonnes of coal multiply by 2.42) 1+2=A Energy carbon footprint for your home 3. CAR FUEL READING Total litres of petrol/diesel used for year:

Multiply by 2.68 to get kg CO 2emitted:

Divide this figure by 1,000 to get the number of tonnes emitted:

OR Total mileage for year:

Multiply by 3.6 to get kg CO 2emitted:

Divide this figure by 1,000 to get the number of tonnes emitted:

1+2+3=B Total carbon footprint for home energy and personal car use FLIGHTS 4. Number of short-haul return flights, eg, Dublin-Paris, Cork-London:

Multiply by 0.2 tonnes:

5. Number of medium-haul flights, eg, Cork-Ankara, Dublin-Cairo:

Multiply by 0.8 tonnes:

6. Number of medium- to long-haul flights, eg, BelfastSouth Africa, Dublin-Japan:

Multiply by two tonnes:

7. Number of long-haul flights, eg, Dublin-Sydney Multiply by 4.2 tonnes:

4+5+6+7=C Total carbon footprint for flying (in tonnes) B+C=D Total direct-energy carbon footprint (Note: This presumes one-person household . . . if more than one person in household, then divide A by number of adult equivalents in household. )