The Hawksworth Family's Carbon Footprint
| Published: 9th March 2007 13:06 |
"Who are the Hawksworths?" and "What's a Carbon Footprint?"
Read on to find out what happens when this Castle Donington family's everyday life is turned into a year long environmental energy reduction experiment for the BBC!!
AboutMyArea/DE74 will be following their progress throughout 2007 as the family broadcast at regular intervals on BBC Breakfast TV - set with the task of reducing their everyday household carbon emissions.
The Hawksworths diary of events ...
Introducing the Hawksworths
Left to Right - Alex, Jacob, Paul, Fraser, Carol, Lauren & OliviaMe.. Paul, age 46 -
I work in IT within the banking industry.
Interests - Juggling life to keep all and sundry happy, technology, and motorcycling.
Carol, age 43 -
Recently returned to college after a 25 year absence and doing an Access course, looking to go to University to eventually become a midwife... really proud of her.
It's not easy having 5 children, running a home and effectively doing 3+ A levels.
Carol and I have lived in Castle Donington all our lives...
Lauren, age 16 -
Doing her A levels @ Hindleys
Interests - Exceeding her monthly text allowance,
retail therapy, etc.
Alex (Alexander), age 15 -
Typical teenage lad of very few words @ Hindleys. Interests - football,
computers, any gaming systems!!
Olivia, age 13 (going on 30) -
A treasure with attitude! and at Castle Donington Community College.
Jacob, age 9 -
So laid back, loves his science, kickboxing and
Dr Who @ Orchard School.
Fraser, age 6 -
A real boy ... footy, television, computer, console games, also at Orchard School.
How it all happened ...
We got involved by me, Paul, responding to the BBC. I don't usually catch the BBC in the mornings as the kids take over the TV with either MTV or Discovery Kids ... so I suppose lucky to catch the appeal broadcast.
Broadcast - 1st December 2006 - Wanted Low Carb Family - as a "guinea pig" family to see how easy or difficult to reduce our carbon emissions.
Both Carol and I had recently viewed an American programme detailing Carbon Foot Printing, so had a basic understanding of what it meant.
The BBC breakfast broadcast, asked for feed back on their website, which I did. My response was honest, with a perhaps little wit, but pertinent to the issues that the average family face.
To my surprise we were contacted in January, and asked if we where still interested in being involved? Then things just seem to just gather pace.
We were advised we had made a shortlist, and then by 5th January we were down to just two families. (And we were still thinking at that point .... No it won't be us!)
I think we had a call on the following Monday advising that they would happy to offer us the experience and asking if we were still happy to be involved? Gulp!
By the Thursday we were filming for an introduction tape..... And then Declan Curry, and the team were turning up and doing a live broadcast from our house the following Monday (the 15th.)
You should have seen Carol's face when it hit home - imagine the BBC is going to turn up and film "live" from your house!! (oh yes every month for a year!) Yes, jobs around the house to finish and loads of tidying!
We, as many families, have hectic lifestyles and perhaps are a little apathetic when it comes to energy usage and making an effort. Projects are put on hold, such as insulation, etc as we have been planning to extend the house for sometime. Things left on standby, lights left on, hitting the on switch on the central heating, if it's chilly, and not replacing our lighting with low energy bulbs, etc. Don't get me wrong though, we always recycle what we can - paper, cardboard, green waste, glass to the bottle bank, etc, oh and compost. We always have a full dishwasher or washing machine (twice a day), with 7 in the household, that's not that difficult.
We have never been eco warriors or part of what I would call the sandal brigade, just a normal average family... perhaps with a few more children than most! And I suppose when you get to "our age" you do take stock of life and look at what we do, why - and what life our children will be left to live with.
Getting involved with the programme I can say has been a real eye opener. Like most, prior to Christmas, the "Carbon Footprint" subject awareness was low key... but since then, it's become very high profile. Every time the news comes on there seems someone, or something related to it being covered or discussed. With MP's, TV celebrities and environmentalists being involved.
The Nitty Gritty of changing ...
Getting started was itself hard work, the BBC breakfast team is small and so I had to get a lot of the info together myself, (no research analyst to help me).
I was going through utility bills and acquiring information from relevant websites that was needed to generate our "score" . This info was passed to the Beeb and they have put our footprint together...
- we still don't know it yet by the way!
At the end of the year we hope to get a very true comparison and to see what is achievable...and also the BBC will have the information to support anyone else wishing to follow the same exercise. We are around average I think.. But can do better.
The programme is helping us provide focus and drive in reducing our footprint and our ultimate goal is to not only achieve a smaller footprint for ourselves but to show others how achievable it is! And perhaps highlight the cost effectiveness so that anyone can do it. (And it can actually save you money!).
I think the average viewer would just switch off, if any of the things we do over the year are unattainable to the majority of people. It's no good going out and spending a fortune on solar panels and wind turbines - the average person just wouldn't do this! (Perhaps that is something we will do or cover at the end of 12 months and even perhaps investigate the values and costs of this or other technology)
It usually falls down to 3 things - Lifestyle, choice and economics when we do the things that contribute to a Carbon Footprint. Primarily we are looking at the easy fixes, and it's also something that we can measure over the year effectively ... utilities such as electricity / gas usage.
We are always going to use and need utility energy, but by installing low energy lighting and ensuring your house is insulated effectively it can reduce this usage (and the figures that contribute to your footprint). We are monitoring our utility meters weekly and also logging our mileage, noting dates when we apply changes and also when it's cold, warm, snowing or even half term. It seems everything we seem to do have an impact on the Co2 emissions that contribute to your Carbon Footprint. Many obvious, many not...
So over the year we will be looking at:
- White Goods i.e. buying energy rated goods
- Car and public transport usage
- Food - how we buy it - where it comes from (Food miles)
- Waste - packaging, recycling, dealing with waste
- Holidays... (Travel etc) Even a visit to North Devon with the Beeb
Story so far...
January
We did the introduction, a bit scary to say the least! A lot of nervous Hawksworths!
We had Alison McCafferty from the Energy Savings Trust with us to highlight all our bad habits and offending high energy usage areas. She also offered recommendations, such as, the grants available etc. to correctly insulate your home. (Although we were all nervous, the experience seemed quite surreal, it was fun and pretty calm, but still kind of Wow!)
Follow this link to the BBC webpage and view a short video of the January BBC Breakfast broadcast
February
This was the Science bit, with the Beeb at Castle Donington Community College doing some filming with Olivia and her classmates, which I'm sure they all enjoyed and a special mention to the school for being so helpful and accommodating!
Follow this link to the BBC webpage and view the short video of the February BBC Breakfast broadcast
Next Live Date:
Friday March 16th is I believe the next live hit where we will be covering Insulation, Savings, Costs, with an overview of the work and what it entails. (It seems some 11 million homes within the UK are not fully insulated).
Overview...
Each Month we discuss with the producer, Sally, what subject they wish to cover. (We do have a rough schedule) and organise a day when she and a cameraman turn up. We will then produce some footage for them to edit for VT to use within the live broadcasts.
Live Days...
On the day... Yes - once a month, every month throughout the year!
Checklist!
- Make sure the schools are aware that the children may be slightly late on attendance!
- Ensure we have a good supply of Coffee, Tea, Bacon and rolls!!
- Get the children to bed early!
- Another quick tidy up..
- Don't have too many red wines the night before! And hope I don't get a call (Part of my role is to provide overnight on call support)
I have to get up around 04:15 as the BBC van arrives around 04:45. Then we have the sound/camera man, the producer and Declan arriving around 05:00.
Both Declan and the producer travel up by train and Declan offsets his Carbon Emissions of the trip. Details of offsetting can be found on www.carbonfootprint.com
And the rest of the family emerge around 05:30ish. Carol and the children have to down and ready for broadcasting for 6.00am - yes 6.00am! We will generally then do a live snippet hit on the hour 6, 7 and 8 with then VT and chat from the house at 20 past the hour. Last one being 08:20.
On the 1st visit, we even did a broadcast to the ABC network in the US. The girls loved that - "Good Morning America!"
We try and kind of get ready for the day between hits, as we still have to carry on with our daily routines. On the 6.00am hit the children are generally in their dressing gowns and looking very sleepy eyed!
Live broadcasting is always entertaining with small children - they can get quite excitable and go into selective deafness, but that's only natural methinks given the situation. And the feedback from the BBC has been positive; I think they enjoy the relaxed and happy atmosphere that is portrayed, along with the normality and fun we have as a whole.
But hand on heart I have to say the BBC team are fantastic, fun, flexible and so professional. (We have a laugh when off camera.. we could also have an entire show with our outtakes! On the VT (non live) days)
I have been so surprised by the way the children and Carol have dealt with the experience, again so proud of them. The girls came across especially well in the February broadcast, very clear, comfortable and confident.
As we are now nearing our 3rd visit we have a more relaxed, expectant feel to what the morning entails and feel more "at home" with the structure and format. What has also been surprising is that locally, there is very little awareness of this exercise and experience. Bit of a shocker in such a small village! Not even made the NuNews - even though we started back in January. What feedback we do get from our friends and neighbours is supportive and jovial, with my work colleagues and Carol's college friends generating loads of banter!
The good bits so far...
- It has definitely generated much discussion, dialogue and debate amongst friends, colleagues, even strangers.
- Raised the subjects awareness in the schools.
- Excited the children, (but it still seems that others get more excited than us when we discuss or make people aware of the experience)
- The experience itself - definitely a Wow, an insight into broadcasting and fantastic meeting and working with such nice people.
- We seem to have gained an extended family with the Beeb crew and we always look forward to next time we meet, even though it's an ungodly hour when they arrive.
Bad bits...
- Oohhh lots of work, researching on the internet, gathering information.
- 3 weekends to strip out the loft, and another to raise the attic floor and fit new loft boarding so I can get all the Christmas stuff and the rest of the garbage us British seem to collect and shove up there!
- Dealing with all the logistics of who where and when!
- Big tidy ups prior to a live visit
I'll post regular blogs on AboutMyArea/DE74 throughout the year on dates and subject matter along with learnings and findings and any other snippets of info!!
Paul
"The Hawksworths"
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