Renewable Electricity & Heating

Housing forms a large part of an individual’s carbon footprint, about a quarter for an average Finnish person. And as most of this is from heating and electricity, housing emissions can be dramatically reduced by switching to renewable energy. Now that many are spending more time and consuming more energy at home and online, where that energy comes from is even more important, and potential reductions even greater.
You can also have more control over some of the emissions of your work if you’re working from home. While you might be able to control the amount of electricity you use at the office as well, you usually can’t decide how it’s produced.

If you’re not sure what kind of electricity you have, it is most usually a mix containing a significant amount of fossil fuel. But getting renewable electricity is quite easy, and after the switch you don’t need to do anything about it anymore and yet your carbon footprint will be significantly smaller. Considering the effort needed to cut in emissions this is definitely the easiest, most impactful thing you can do. You can get renewable electricity by just making a new contract online, you don’t have to separately cancel your old one, even if you’re switching companies (at least in Finland, we’re not sure about other countries!). There are several different companies offering different contracts, one Finnish example is Ilmatar that only offers wind generated electricity and has a fab website.

As for heating methods, if you have electric heating you have your heating sorted out automatically by getting renewable electricity. A ground source heat pump (or other kind of heat pump) can be a great, more efficient option that pays itself back in a few years, but requires an initial investment. And for those who live in Helsinki and have district heating (95% of Helsinki does), Helen is now offering a renewable option. You can get it even when you’re not the one who has the district heating contract with them (it’s usually your housing company that has it), and it starts at 2,2e a month depending on the size of your home and cuts your emissions significantly.

PS. The iMac was bought second hand from Mresell.