A guide to driving your car more sustainably and save money

On average travel represents a staggering 56% of our primary (personal) footprint in Ireland.  Car ownership is rapidly increasing throughout the EU reaching an estimated 252 million in 2015/6.  This is equivalent of 600 million tonnes of CO2 e being emitted by European drivers each year, which is only a small portion of the 1.8 billion cars worldwide.

Manufacture’s fuel efficiency data and fuel types are discussed explaining the difference between real and lab based emission values. Comparison with other transport modes are made using carpooling as an example of how drivers can make car usage more efficient than public transport where it is limited or not available.  The booklet explains practical ways in which we can all drive more sustainably as well as exploring the problem of emissions arising from the  manufacture and disposal of vehicle which is currently ignored in our footprint analysis.  Buying a car is discussed and studies have shown that you don’t need to buy a new electric vehicle (EV) or hybrid to drive with minimum impact.  Emissions from EVs are compared to standard fuels indicating that the selection of the most appropriate vehicle type can save you a lot of money over the lifetime of the vehicle, and that EVs and Hybrids are not always a good choice for drivers with selection dependent on length and frequency of journey, whether urban or rural, or used for commuting.

Driving sustainably results in drivers reducing their fuel consumption by 10-50% saving without actually driving less distance of using the car less frequently.  This represents significant financial savings as well as reducing emissions, pollution and increasing driver safety.

This means that an easily achieved 10% reduction in fuel consumption which all drivers can achieve, without reducing the frequency or distance driven, would save 10 million tonnes of CO₂e within the EU each year, equivalent to 7.9 million tonnes in the UK or 0.42 million tonnes of CO₂e in Ireland where car ownership is around 2,000,000.  So for every 10% reduction in fuel usage each car would on average be saving 0.234 or 0.213 tonnes of CO₂e per annum in the UK and Ireland respectively from their primary footprint.  With a 20-30% reduction possible for the average driver then driving sustainably can make a significant different to greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change as well as making our air cleaner and driving safer.

Driving Sustainably:  A guide to reducing your carbon footprint is written by Nick Gray and is the first guide to reducing your carbon footprint in the Tigroney Sustainable Planet Series published by Tigroney Press. Available as a free e-book (ISBN 978-1-912290-20-8) download at: http://hdl.handle.net/2262/85300 or https://bit.ly/2QrWnFe

Air pollution reaches a new high in China

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The airpocalypse is what people are calling the extended periods of smog that have been intensifying over the past few years in China’s capital Beijing.   In the city deaths from lung cancer have increased by 56% over the decade up to 2010 coinciding with massive industrialization and an increase in the number of cars using the city’s street exceeding 5 million. The most serious problem appears to be PM2.5, minute particles released from fires and vehicle exhausts which has strong links to lung cancer.  To counteract the effects of the smog particles all schools in the capital will be closed when smog  incidents persist for more than three days.  Twenty percent of the world’s confirmed cases of cancer now occur in china with atmopsheric pollution a major causative factor.  Seven of the top 10 most polluted cities in China are in the Hebei province in the North of the country which is a major centre for coal powered electricity generation and steel manufacturing resulting in the heavy atmospheric pollution that also contributes to the problem in Beijing.  In 2014 the city will be setting even stricter quotas on the number of new car registrations to just 150,000, a reduction of 40% over the previous year’s quota.
Nick Gray

Carpooling: The Drive to Green.

It was the summer of 2010; myself and a friend were on a trip of a lifetime inter-railing around Europe. For those of you who have never inter-railed, an inter-rail pass is a train ticket for EU members allowing you to travel between countries in the EU over a period of time.
Inter-railing is an experience to say the least. Leaving aside the crazy nights out, the sun, sea, historical sites and the people you meet along the way. You can often arrive in new location tired, hungry, and bagged down and with no idea of where you’re staying, or what you’re doing.

It was this mixed bag of emotions which we were carrying when we were hurled off an overnight train in Stuttgart mid journey from Munich to Paris. The train had been double booked, they had no record of our reservations, and no sympathy for the tired tears that ran down our grubby faces – Off we stepped at 3am into Stuttgart. We desperately needed to get to Paris on time –but how? Despite the lack of customers one solitary café remained open despite the lack of customers. This Café introduced us to a Danish girl who was fluent in English and German, she kindly helped us to look up tickets for the next train, and at two hundred Euros each we quickly resigned to the fact that we were doomed.   Seeing our reaction the Dane stepped up her game and introduced us to the Mid- European phenomenon of Carpooling.

The majority of us have heard of people sharing lifts to work or school in order to save; time, money and of course the environment. This goes a step further. We found a website advertising free spaces in a car which was travelling from one destination to another, each passenger pooled their money together to pay for the petrol. So there we were at 4.30 am calling a strange number arranging a lift to Paris from Stuttgart and by 7 am we were in a car with four other people! By pooling together we saved the money and the environment through more efficient use of petrol as it would take the same amount of petrol to take one of us from Stuttgart to Paris.

Carpooling evidently means more people in a one car, this means less cars on the road, this can directly lead to less pollution; Less air pollution, noise pollution, less carbon emission, less greenhouse gas emission. Evidently carpooling is a major and direct step towards a cleaner and greener environment.  When we arrived safely in Paris we wished our fellow commuters a nice trip and parted ways. For a simple 30 euro each we made an economical saving of 170 euro each, in comparison to the alternative train ticket, while simultaneously saving the environment.

Although many people have questioned the safety element of ‘getting in a car with a stranger’ this carpooling idea could easily be adopted to the business sector of Ireland with many people making trips from Dublin to Galway or Cork on a daily basis it would be a safe and easy way to save the money and the environment to simply set up a business carpooling community and drive towards green.

Jane Farrelly

Eco-friendly Cars

For decades human civilisation has been taking advantage of our natural resources with little thought in returning to the land what we have taken. It can be nothing but clear that today we can no longer do this, we need to be more aware of the effect we have on the earth and the atmosphere that surrounds it. CO2 emissions are an increasing worry from industrial emissions to right down to light bulbs. With a growing population annually, there is more demand for agricultural and industrial produce but also materialism gets hit with an increase also. Whilst cars and trucks and vans are all needed for personal transport in our daily lives and transport of goods for sale, we seem to have taken a purely materialistic view on them in the past century.

There is now a huge range of eco- friendly cars available on the market by all the top sellers. For example, the cars available to us in 2012 are BMW 3 series saloon, various Vauxhall, Volkswagen, Toyota, Peugeot and Nissans  amongst many more. These eco cars allow us to drive and decrease air pollution at the same time. Cars that run on electricity is the aim but before we get there hybrid cars are our first step, they have a half electric and half internal combustion system, this decreases the pollution factor immensely and are cost effective for consumers by reducing the need for gasoline. I think these cars need to be indorsed and marketed much more than the full combustion system cars, I am a strong believer that they will significantly help our planet in the long run and hope our aim of purely electrically run cars will be the norm sooner rather than later.

Amy Curran