Getting around, just greener
Save money and cut your carbon with these sustainable travel tips. Or for free help to plan how you can make regular journeys in greener ways, get in touch with our Green Team.
Walk this way (yes, cycling is fine too).
Walk this way (to the shops)
Saves 27 kilograms of carbon and £21 a year if you walk rather than drive to a shop one mile away once a week.
Most of us live within 15 minutes’ walk of a food shop. While it’s tempting to drive sometimes, walking is greener and burns around 90 calories each way.
Join a walking group
Local walks
On your bike (an electric one ideally)
Including emissions from manufacture, using an electric bike saves around 380 grams of carbon per mile compared to a petrol or diesel car.
Electric bikes result in fewer emissions than regular ones, even when you include the emissions from making it in the first place.
Generating the electricity for an electric bike emits less than the food the average person eats to give them the energy they use to cycle on a regular bike.
Join a local bike club
There are loads of local cycle groups you could join, including these below.
Find cycle routes and parking
Get your bike fixed at a repair cafe
A repair cafe could fix your bike for you for free.
Cycling training
Swift and sustainable.
For longer journeys (or ones you need to make quickly), public transport and electric cars are great ways of getting around.
Here’s my number, so carpool maybe?
If you drive a mid-size petrol car, carsharing once a week for a 10-mile round trip could save over 1,300 kilograms of carbon and around £100 in fuel a year.
The drive to work doesn’t have to be dull and costly. You can meet someone new to chat to and cut your emissions and fuel bills with LiftShare.
Choose the plug life
Per year, driving an electric car 7,400 miles saves around 810 kilograms of carbon (including the carbon used to make it) and £740 in fuel vs driving a mid-size petrol car the same distance.
Electric cars’ emissions are around 70% less, plus they cost less to service and run than petrol and diesel cars – even with today’s energy costs.
Travel together
A journey by bus emits less than half the carbon than going by petrol or diesel car. And the train is even better, saving 75% compared to using a fossil fuel car.
Traffic is stressful. We don’t know about you, but we’d rather let someone else take us to where we need to go and relax with a podcast or book instead.
Consider community travel
It can save emissions and money on fuel and parking.
If you don’t have a car, have poor mobility, find it difficult to use public transport or live in a rural area with poor transport links, it can be difficult to get about. But services like Basingstoke Community Travel can help you get around, often in a lower carbon way compared to using a private car.
Flying too often is plane silly
By going by train from Edinburgh to London, your carbon footprint will be less than a fifth of what it would be if you took a plane instead.
Flying is one of the most damaging ways to travel. Unless it’s necessary, maybe take a coach or the train. You’ll avoid the boring wait in the airport lounge…
Are we missing anything?