LEDs to Save Town Councils $5M a Year [News]

10 Feb 2011 – It’s a bright idea – install LED lights in the common areas of 2,000 Housing Board blocks islandwide and help town councils save $5 million a year.

Better still, the switch to this energy-efficient option may also yield about $250,000 worth of carbon credits a year for the next 10 years.

This is what 10 town councils here will be doing this year – registering their energy-efficient efforts with the United Nations (UN), in what will be Singapore’s first public-sector carbon-credit project.

Under the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, certain countries, including Singapore, are allowed to register for carbon credits, which they can sell for money in the carbon market. Read more

Calculate Your Carbon Footprint

You can take individual action on climate change and the best way to start is to understand the size of your carbon footprint, which is the amount of carbon emissions that result directly and indirectly from your daily activities and lifestyle.

By calculating your carbon footprint, you can find out which activity generates more carbon emissions and take steps to change your lifestyle accordingly and reduce your emissions.

There are several online carbon footprint calculators that help you calculate your emissions and compare with the rest of the world. However, your carbon footprint may vary according to the calculator you use as these calculators vary by country, by activity and by the methodology behind the calculations.

What you can do is to calculate your carbon footprint using different calculators and take the average, or use a calculator that is catered for Singapore.

Here are some online carbon footprint calculators:

• SEC Climate Portal (for Singapore)
• Singapore Polytechnic (for Singapore)
• My Carbon Footprint by Hemispheres Foundation (for Singapore)
• The GreenAsia Group (includes Singapore)
• BP Energy Calculator (includes Singapore)
• BeGreenNow
• Carbon Footprint
• Carbonfund.org
• ClimateCare
• EarthLab
• Friends of the Earth
• Resurgence Carbon Calculator
• SafeClimate
• TerraPass
• The CarbonNeutral Company
• WWF Footprint Calculator
• Zerofootprint

Some tips for using the calculators:

• Check the electricity consumption from your utility bill or use the monthly national average
• The average amount of domestic waste generated per person per day in 2008 was 0.84 kg
• Use gothere.sg to check vehicle distance
• Check distance between countries

Most of the websites above offer carbon offsetting schemes, where you can buy carbon offsets to neutralise your carbon emissions as the payment is used to fund carbon-reducing projects such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects. You should first find ways to reduce your carbon footprint before offsetting your remaining emissions. Also, choose carbon offsets that meet standards such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard and the Gold Standard VER.

Check out our other tips on reducing your carbon footprint or watch this video:

Image credit: Plusverde; bunchkles; dlnny.