National Walking Month – Reduce your Co2 emissions

May is National Walking Month. Walking is one of the simplest forms of physical activity. It has great health benefits and almost everyone can do it. In May, Living Streets and Walk England are joining forces to promote walking and help people get out and about on foot.

This week, from Monday 20th May to Friday 24th May is Walk to School Week. This brings together nearly one million schoolchildren, teachers and parents.

Walking can be done anywhere;

  • Catch a bus or train? Why not get off a stop earlier and walk the rest of the way?
  • Take the stairs instead of the lift

There’s no doubting the convenience of jumping in the car. But walking can often be a practical substitute, especially in a town or city. Walking is certainly cheaper, saving on parking fees as well as fuel. And the health benefits are huge, from weight loss to better fitness and overall physical and mental well-being.

During term-time, one in five cars on the road travel at the peak time of 8:45am. Half of all UK car journeys are for fewer than five miles. Short journey’s like this can be expensive, because cars can use twice as much fuel when engines are warming up. Too much CO2 in the air leads to climate change, also known as global warming. The UK alone produces around 520 million tonnes* of CO2 emissions.

Knowing your carbon footprint helps you understand your impact on the environment, and more importantly, find easy ways to reduce that impact. By making UK households more energy efficient and reducing our transport energy consumption we can make big reductions in the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions.**

You can estimate your carbon footprint using the online calculator at the DirectGov website.

  • You enter details about your home, your travel and your appliances.
  • The calculator estimates how many tonnes of carbon dioxide you produce each year.

By switching to walking, we can save huge amounts of CO2, helping to prevent climate change, and reduce levels of air pollution.