Did you know that 36.44kg of CO2 emissions are produced to serve up 1,000 calories of beef and 5.15kg of CO2 emissions give us 1,000 calories of pork?
But only 0.63kg of CO2 emissions are released for every 1,000 calories of potatoes and 0.07kg are created for 1,000 calories of nuts?
A home’s heating and cooling makes up around 40% of its energy use.
To help lower your energy bills and your carbon emissions, seal your windows and doors to keep the heat inside in the cooler months and the heat outside in the warmer months. Door and window weather strips are available at DIY stores.
Appliances can contribute up to 30% of the home’s carbon footprint. Think about using high energy efficient appliances – all appliances come with an energy star rating, the more stars, the more energy efficient they are.
Consider changing the lighting in your home to energy-efficient lighting, like LEDs, which consume around 80% less energy than older globes and can last between 4 and 10 times longer.
On short trips - think about leaving your car behind.
Cars are least efficient and most polluting at the start of trips and on short trips of less than 5km, because the engine can’t reach its peak operating temperature.
If you walk or cycle instead you will save 0.25kg of CO2 emissions per km*, not to mention how much healthier you will be! And when you do drive, make sure your tyres are inflated properly. U.S. studies show that under-inflated tyres can lose you around 2 to 3 miles per gallon (which equates to about 51-75 km per 60L petrol tank).
Try to buy only what you need and what you will use. In Australia, we waste more than 30% of the food we buy. We throw out around 3.1m tonnes of food each year; of this 2.54m tonnes is from our homes.
When rotting food ends up in our landfill, it turns to methane contributing to our greenhouse gas emissions.
Telstra has a carbon footprint because we use energy that relies on burning fossil fuels to provide mobile and internet services for millions of Australians across the nation.
To reduce our carbon footprint and minimise our impact on the environment, we announced three climate change goals in 2020: