Sustainable Transport
Approximately a quarter of current UK carbon emissions are attributed to transport. A typical petrol fuelled car can emit it’s own weight in harmful emissions over just 6,000 miles travelled. Whereas, it’s difficult to eliminate your carbon emissions completely when you drive a petrol or diesel powered vehicle, there are several ways you can reduce your impact on the environment.
Here are a few common sense ideas –
- Drive fewer journeys – car share, cycle, walk or take the bus.
- Try not to use the car for short trips.
- Drive smoothly and consistently, ideally in a higher gear.
- Air conditioning increases fuel consumption by up to 10%, only switch it on when it’s really necessary.
- Keep your car serviced regularly and ensure tyres are checked and properly inflated.
- Don’t sit idle in heavy traffic, switch off your engine if it is safe to do so.
- Car weight affects fuel economy. Keep your boot empty when you can and don’t carry stuff around with you that you don’t need.
- Watch your speed. Hard acceleration, braking or driving too fast increases fuel consumption.
- When changing your car you could consider a more fuel efficient model, which will reduce your carbon emissions. Alternative fuel technologies are currently being developed and we are already seeing a selection of new cars coming onto the market that are ‘environmentally friendly’. Hybrid cars and those that run on bio-fuels or even hydrogen are gradually becoming more mainstream. These new technologies will take time to feed down through the markets before becoming more available and affordable.
To find out more about the emissions of carbon dioxide your current car produces, click on the link on the right hand side of the page.
For more local information about transport including parking, roads, cycling, public and community transport, click on the 'Transport and Roads' link.