A year on from the start of this blog and it's time to take stock of how I've been doing in my efforts to live a greener life.

I score well on cutting back on consumerism, for example only buying new clothes or other items when I need them and using small, locally-owned shops most of the time rather than big brands from multi-national chains. And I've continued buying mainly organic food which is in season to cut down on my food miles and gone for the more eco-friendly version of anything I buy.
But it still adds up to a pretty big carbon footprint. Even when I think I've done pretty well cutting down or going greener, I look at how it all adds up and wonder where all that extra CO2 has come from. This month's transport figures are a case in point with Easter trips to the Lakes and to see my parents bumping up the driving total. Even though a lot of my car journeys are shared, it's all pretty scary and more Obscene than Green.

Miles by car: -983
Miles being driven: -119
Miles by train: +415
Miles on foot: +137
Miles by bike: +0
Miles by bus: +0
Miles by ferry: +0
Total: -550 (running total: -2616)

So overall in the year I have covered nearly 20000 miles, just a few miles short of travelling to Adelaide in southern Australia and back or 80 per cent of the way round the world at the equator. But on the other hand, that's far less mileage than a lot of people do just in their cars and half of it was under my own steam or using public transport.
My walking/public transport score against car use was just in positive balance at +69 miles but it was the air travel that set me back a long way. That trip to southern Spain produced nearly half a ton of CO2, five per cent of my annual total of 8.738 tons.
The rest of my transport totalled nearly three tons (60 per cent of that driving my own car) while heating and powering my house amounted to another 1.85 tons and secondary sources like food, clothes and buying other goods accounted for 3.5 tons.
I thought I was doing a lot better than the national personal average but, in fact, I was only 1.2 tons or 11 per cent below the UK's figure of 9.8. I'll have to try harder and aim to beat that, though I can't see myself making the world target of two tons per person.

Miles by car: -7202
Miles being driven: -1382
Miles by plane: -2708
Miles by train: +6860
Miles on foot: +1445
Miles by bike: +5
Miles by bus: +77
Miles by ferry: +266
Total: 19945

It's a lot better than I used to do with flights most years to Africa, the Americas or Australia plus a trip to Europe by jet. And these figures will be the benchmark for what I do in future to reduce my impact on the planet further.
Having kept the diary for a year, I recommend everyone do something similar to see exactly how much travelling we do and how it adds to our carbon footprint.