Do you know what are the sources of emissions in the home?

Do you want to better understand what your carbon footprint is like at home?

Let’s start by understanding what are the sources of emissions in our homes.

On the one hand, we have direct emissions. These are generated physically in the home, and among them we have, for example those associated with the use of fuels (usually calefactar the house, hot water, and sometimes cooking) such as natural gas. There are also other less obvious causes, such as gases from air conditioners that leak into the atmosphere (that’s why the technician has to go to “fill the circuit” from time to time), which are usually fluorinated gases with a huge greenhouse effect potential.

On the other hand, we have indirect emissions, a consequence of the activities we carry out at home but not directly generated in it.

A case of indirect emission is the electricity we consume, which is generated elsewhere and reaches us through the electricity grid. Our electricity consumption at home allows us to have artificial light, power the appliances, watch TV, charge the mobile, etc. That electricity may have been generated with fossil fuels, and the emissions associated with it would be part of the indirect emissions of our home.

Another case, perhaps less obvious, would be that of the emissions of other services necessary for us to live in our house. For example, the emissions associated with the home insurance that we have contracted, or the mortgage that we pay. Both services require a company to be active and emit various greenhouse gases (which can be more or less depending on the company, of course).

In The Planet App you can see a breakdown of your carbon footprint at home. If you have the app installed on the same terminal that you are reading this you can see it at this link, you can also access the app and on the “Fingerprint” screen click on “View breakdown”.

The carbon footprint of a person resident in Spain is on average 5.5 tons. of CO2 equivalent per year. The household category is approximately 10% of this total, that is, per year we directly generate or induce the emission of slightly more than 0.5 tons of CO2 only with our activity related to the place where we live.