Hi, everyone, I am Deby Jackson, owner, editor and publisher of That Leeds Mag. And today I am talking to Toby Green, co founder of MyCarbon and a PhD researcher at Leeds University. Hi, Toby.
Hi, how you doing?
Good, thank you. Lots of questions I want to talk to you about carbon, MyCarbon, find out what it's all about. And the readers, you know, what they could change in their lives to improve their carbon footprint?
Yeah, cool. Let's go for it
Let's start with this question. What is your connection to Leeds - the greatest city in the world?
It really is, isn't it? In the UK there's nowhere else I'd like to live. I was born down south and Leeds, Leeds all the way. Leeds, Leeds all the way. It's been a great I think I've been here four or five years now. In September 2016 I moved. And I moved for the PhD at Leeds University. Yes, I was undergraduate and masters in Loughborough. And then Loughborough's a very small town - you need to get out.
Okay.
And Leeds offered a PhD in bioenergy. And that's something I really, really was interested in. Still am. Obviously. I'd never been to Leeds before, but loved it, absolutely loved it. Loving it.
I just wanted to point out to the readers that Toby is wearing a mask because he's in his lab at the University at the moment. And that's protocol with Covid
I'm still here. You're right. I've got my microphone.
So who are MyCarbon?
So MyCarbon is myself and the other co founder, Michael Greenhoff, who is currently in Birmingham. We both did our undergraduate degrees together. In Loughborough we lived together. And we both were both very passionate about sustainability it's something we often talked about. We entered a competition for BP once, the petrol company, with the task of how to reduce the waste water consumption in the oil and gas industry. And through that is where we came to 'got to learn about bioenergy'. And we decided if we could use a salt water algae and turn that into fuel, then you wouldn't need fresh water. So that's the last bit about bit about me and Michael. It wasn't until I really started my PhD here in Leeds in bioenergy, where I became increasingly aware of how individual behaviours can impact the environment. And it was during that time, where I really struggled to balance life's everyday activities with the need to live in a sustainable way. And that's where MyCarbon came from. I feel that lots of people really care about the environment, but struggle to kind of incorporate it into their everyday lives. So what we try and do is, is MyCarbon is the easiest way for you to take responsibility for your own carbon footprint, and then lead a carbon neutral lifestyle,
Which we all should be trying to do. Carbon Neutral is a phrase that gets used a lot, but what does it actually mean?
So Carbon Neutral, is different to net zero, because net zero is also a phrase that's talked about. So neutral is all about
bringing you back to zero. Essentially, if you're going around and you're driving, you're polluting and through your diet, your activities. That's all giving you emissions. And over the course of the year, in the UK, your average emissions is 12 tonnes of CO2 per year. And that's equivalent to about 40,000 filled CO2 balloons. So if you can try and envision that it's a lot. No sorry 1 tonne is equivalent to 40,000. So times that by 12.
That's a lot of balloons
So about Carbon Neutral, it's about bringing all them balloons back down to zero. And the only official way to do this is through carbon credits, through the purchase and retirement of a carbon credit. Now one carbon credit is equal to the removal, or the prevention of one tonne of CO2 entering the atmosphere. And so there are there are projects, carbon projects that create these carbon credits. And that could be a forestry project. It could be a renewable energy project. It could be carbon capture. Or it could be something more energy efficiency.
So that doing something like planting the trees with the carbon and therefore offsets the damage that we do.
Yes. So when it comes to something like a forestry project, it's all about well, how much carbon is this forest taking out of the atmosphere? And then they then sell that they and sell these negative emissions as a carbon credit, and if I buy the carbon credit. I've purchased that negative emission.
And you're offsetting what you're doing.
Yeah. But the very important step is you have to retire the carbon credit. Because a carbon credit is a tradable commodity. It's like a stock or a share. You can buy and sell them they go up and down price. So you have to retire these carbon credits. You have to purchase and retire them, which means that you've offset your carbon footprint.
So purchase it and use it and then it's gone.
So that means because we retired them, it means we can never sell them on.
Because they're done.
Yeah. And it's also why carbon credits are very important is because that is so heavily audited, and so it's not just planting trees, because there's lots of schemes out there that say, we'll plant a tree and offset your carbon footprint. That's not true. That's, that's false advertising. They shouldn't be allowed to say this. Because if you plant a tree, how do you know, it's going to be there in 40 years time? You've got no idea. And now because I've been put tree planting with like, the National Trust and whatnot. I've been back a year later. And seen that half the work we did has been knocked down by animals, eaten, winds blown them over. There's so many things like growing trees is pretty hard.
There's a lot of variables in there
A lot. So when people say they plant trees to offset their footprint. It's a great idea. But the reality is, these trees may not grow up, there's that may, you don't know it. With a carbon credit. It's official, it has happened, that carbon has been removed out of the atmosphere.
Is there a government body or something that tracks this?
Not necessarily, it's just you need to be aware of what you're looking for, at the end of the day,
Okay. Is MyCarbon doing that?
Yeah. And this is also, again, getting into like a deeper level of it. As, and this is kind of where the public have a bit of mistrust about carbon credits, is that how they're created. There's different standards of carbon credit. Now, they all signify one tonne of carbon removal, but it's kind of like the saying, 'all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others'. There are better and worse ones. So what we try and do is we have like a diverse portfolio of our carbon credits. So we try and pick projects that we actually believe in that we believe do the job of removing a tonne of carbon dioxide. And that support climate issues in various ways. So renewable energy projects and forestry projects are ones that we believe in, really, so we take a lot of them. We're looking into now trying to get some actual carbon capture carbon credits, because that's that's the future. That's what we need is this direct removal of carbon from the air. But they're much trickier.
So you're looking quite carefully into the projects that MyCarbon work with. And so you're sort of taking the taking care of that for your customers.
Yep. Yeah, exactly. We're not just trying to, you know, pick whatever we can find. Our first priority is carbon out of the atmosphere. Our second priority is what are the social benefits that this project has. Because with tree planting, you can look at biodiversity, you can look at wildlife, which is all fantastic. But we are in the business of taking carbon out the atmosphere. So that is our number one role. You know, if you want to save the wildlife, there's so many other funds and ways to do that. But in terms of carbon, that's what we've got to look at as being number one.
So what is the highest carbon activity that we do as individuals? So driving to work or going on holiday? What's the thing?
There's two. There's two that I debate. And depends, I don't want to say bad, it depends how much you admit. It's either your flying and your diet. So they're the two. So flying wise. The UK average person is if you take one economy flight, London to New York, six hours, that's one tonne of co2, that you're responsible for.
Loads and loads more balloons,
That's loads and loads more balloons. And that's just one way, one flight. So return is two tonnes. So if you holiday to New York, very nice can't at the moment. But that'd be that'd be two tonnes. So that can add up over the course of the year. Fair enough, if you're just flying around Europe, and it's probably about half a tonne each. But you know, if you're going somewhere far away like Australia, it can really up in just one one return journey. And then you've got the issue of some people like to go economy plus, or business class, or first class. And because of the amount of extra space you're using on the plane, the emission factor, that is used to calculate your carbon footprint from your journey gets then doubled and then quadrupled. So if you're first class, London to New York, you're looking at about four tonnes of CO2. For one way journey, one way, so eight tonnes for first class return journey.
I wouldn't go first class anyway.
Some people do and that's that. That's kind of the thing of I don't want to stop people doing that, per se. We can't stop people doing it.
If they can afford a first class flight, chances are they afford to offset their carbon.
Exactly. So that that's flying. And as I said, it obviously, depends on how much you do it. And the less the better. And is it is, from a personal point of view, it is mainly people going on holiday. And all that I can say is, you know, have a look at trains. You know, if you go on holiday around Europe. It is again, the expense of it. There are lots of ways of going about Europe that isn't flying. So, you know, that's something I really recommend is Eurostar. Again, again, if it's if you can afford it, you know, it makes it much nicer journey. That's true, you know, busy airports. Yeah.
So you mentioned them. You mentioned food.
Yep. And your diet as well. So if we go with the average, average person, you know, about what, 2,000 calories a day. So average grocery shop. If you if you're someone who eats a lot of meat, and all of the meats, we're talking beef, lamb, pork, chicken, fish, all of that your yearly emissions would be about three and a half tonnes around that just from your diet alone. Maybe a little under. Now if you if you remove the beef and lamb they're the biggest sources of emissions. So if you're sticking to your chicken, pork fish, and then your veggies that can cut right down. I can half it. So you're looking at just about 1.7 tonnes per year. That's if you cut out your beef and lamb. And if you if you go down to being a vegetarian, you're about a 1.2 per year, and then if you're vegan, you're looking at about naught point five to naught point seven tonnes per year.
Being vegan it's quite hard to do, especially if you are a big meat eater. So, in that situation, I just say, try and reduce it a little bit. You know, if you're someone who loves meat, meat is life there's nothing wrong with that we're human beings. We eat meat. I'm not here to preach to anyone - Stop eating meat be a vegan. No, just try having a little bit less. You know, if you love beef, and you really don't want to get rid of it, I'd say for one, buy high quality beef. You know, buy it from your local butcher, you know, where the cow is from, you know it's a nice English cow that's been grown on the countryside where it's not causing deforestation like some in Indonesia, or in Thailand because that's really a huge issue of these beef emissions is that huge chunks of rain forest in Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil are being cleared for cattle that are being raised, you know, on a factory scale.
And sold in England?
Yeah. Yeah. It would, it's probably in places where you expect it a little bit less. So might be more in your ready meals, or in takeaways.
Hidden then isn't it?
Yeah. So if you go to Tesco, you go to the beef aisle or whatnot. They often will say, British beef or something
Irish?
Yes. Okay. It's probably, it's probably good. But you know, Ireland's still have huge, huge cow factories. And that's where all these huge emissions. So that's why I say try and go local. Because it's always better on the emission side, it's likely, if it's a local cattle farmer, he probably doesn't have the option to plant and grow crops.
Doesn't have the massive factory kind of cattle situation.
So it's all about, it's all about eating a little bit less. So cut down beef to one time a week. And then cut it down to once a month. And again, like the savings you will make, by buying less you can afford that nicer piece of meat. And the same with chicken. You know, if you're someone who doesn't eat beef already for whatever reason, then you can go to the next step. And, you know, try incorporating a couple vegetarian meals into your diet in your evening meals. Once a week.
Think a bit more about what you're buying and on what you're eating. Because the carbon isn't when you're cooking it. It is the carbon from the process of that animal growing up, being cold in whatever way, travelling to the UK and then going through the processes of being put into a ready meal. You know, you know, everything that comes before that.
So why is it bad? What's our carbon doing? We have so much carbon in the world. Why is it bad. We need carbon to live.
It's not necessarily bad. And I get this on my Facebook comments all the time. Carbon is good. Carbon is life. We need it for our plants, for photosynthesis. We need it in our soil. But there's too much of a good thing. And the point is, what's happening now is we get all this carbon that's locked up in our earth. And it's going up into our atmosphere. So all our earthly carbon is becoming stratospheric carbon. And carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas as well as the five others - you've got methane, pertrofluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Yeah, that's a really nice one. These all have different global warming potentials. So carbon dioxide has a global warming potential of one. So that's why everyone talks about it because it's kind of like the basis that is a one. Methane has a global warming potential of 21. That means one tonne of methane in the atmosphere is 21 times worse than carbon dioxide. So that's again that's goes back to cattle, because cattle produce so much methane and all this methane onto the ice. That's melting and becoming atmospheric, why people are getting worried about it. Then there's the HFCs and the PFCs. Quite a while ago it was real big in the news of people's fridges that they were emitting these gases and aerosol cans are emitting these gases. Their warming potential ranges from about few hundred to a few thousand. So they're real nasty. And then there's the SF6, which has a global warming potential just under 24,000. And that's used in the electronics industry. So we're talking about your phones and your laptops and whatnot, what it takes to make those products. When that gas is used, or is usually a byproduct, they have to work very hard to try and capture that so doesn't go in the atmosphere. But what all these gases do is they act like a greenhouse, and they get a nice layer around our Earth, that means when the sun's rays hit our Earth and reflect out they can't get back out. Just like a greenhouse works, and it just keeps the planet warm, too warm. And that is what is slowly heating us up and is increasing. So I think we've hit the one degree increase in temperature. We're about to hit the one and a half degree and it's this two degrees that everyone's really trying their hardest to avoid now
It makes lots of ice caps melt.
And it's making our ice caps melt. It's changing the weather. And it all rolls on as well, it all has a tipping point. So as the earth gets hotter, ice melts quicker. As the ice melts quick, more methane gets released. It gets hotter, ice melts even quicker. Has that effect. You have these horrendous hurricanes, you have these horrendous cyclones that are happening. So all the weather patterns are being affected. And I watched a very interesting documentary about how it's changing our farming. And all the dust is having an effect
Do you remember what that was called?.
It was tough. I looked at it this morning. It's Woody. Woody Harrelson narrates it on Netflix. I think hang on 'Kiss the Ground'.
What is that all about?
It's all about the kind of the farming element. And and what we need to do with our land to help the fight against the climate crisis. So it's talking about, you know, how all our land is just as dry. And we've just abused that due to farming as fat how Actually, we kind of need to go back a couple steps. Okay.
So if anyone's more interested in looking into that, they can watch?
Yeah, it's really good. It'ss a bit different from your typical David Attenborough documentaries, which golden, obviously, has a slightly different side on it. It talks about the importance of clouds, and the importance of our ground and sort of what we can do, you know, even as individuals and the changes we can make,
How can I find out my carbon footprint?
Easy peasy. Yeah, if you go to MyCarbon.co.uk you will be able to find our carbon calculator. And it takes you about three minutes to go through it. Free, simple to use. No signup is required. So you can just go on to it. Tap, tap tap away. Put your information in. We ask you a question about your home life is really about like your home energy bills, we can calculate that. We ask you about your lifestyle. So we talk about your diet, your hobbies, what you do to kind of get a gauge of how much you're emitting there. And then we ask about your travel. So do you fly? do you drive? do you cycle? that sort of thing. Takes about three minutes to do. And once you've done that, once you've gone through the calculator, you'll receive your answer. And then you kind of have three options there. So you'll have your carbon footprint. And you can over then just take it as it is. Go away, carry on. Make some changes to your lifestyle, come back, retake the test, and see if it gets any lower. Option two is to enter in an email address at the end. And that's where you'll receive a specific breakdown of your carbon footprint. And that way, you'll be able to target which area of your life you actually want to try and reduce your carbon footprint in. The travel section may really shock you. And then that might inspire you to cycle to work or something along those lines. And option number three is to sign up to our offsetting service where you can become carbon neutral, and on top of that is where you'll get personalised advice on how to reduce your carbon footprint. So I'll review all of your answers. And I'll give you personalised advice, specifically to you on what steps you should take to slowly begin to reduce your carbon footprint and it's nothing where I'm going to say 'stop driving', 'stop flying', 'stop eating meat'. It's all targeted to make these small simple changes, step by step that will get you down and to reduce just where you can.
Because we're all going to use carbon. There's nothing we can do.
There's nothing you can do. Not unless you live like a caveman.
Yeah and grow vegetables.
You wouldn't even be allowed to attach to the National Grid. You couldn't have anything because everything's made. Yeah. You know, it's very, very, very, very, very, very difficult to produce nothing.
Yeah, I see what you mean. There sort of is a carbon footprint. I was thinking like it's go nothing to do with my feet. But it is stuff you're doing to the world, bringing the carbon down. And yeah to stop what's going on with the atmosphere.
That's right.
That's cool. So the small changes in our daily life. If we go onto your app, we can have a look. And it will give us some direction.
That's right. Yeah.
That's fine. I think that's a big education for me. That's a big education for our readers as well.
Yeah, I hope so.
Thank you for your time, Toby. Have a nice day.
Thank you very much for having me. I'll see you later. Bye. Take care.
