Targeting Zero

5Low carbon design – human scale

Carbon emissions can be reduced at all scales, and changes to individual behaviour can make a significant difference. For example, in the book How Bad are Bananas?, Mike Berners-Lee shows that switching from a cappuccino at 235gCO₂e to a black coffee at 21gCO₂e represents a +90% improvement.¹ Individually this is a small saving, but by changing the coffee habits of a nation the savings are potentially huge. The aim of this chapter is to view the somewhat abstract notion of carbon emissions in the built environment on a more understandable and human scale.

The EU has noted that, since conventional emissions reduction strategies are unlikely to deliver the targeted reductions (80% reductaion from 1990 levels ...