3 minute read
Small changes, big impact
from Acu. Winter 2021
by Acu.
Joe Jennings is on a mission to become a carbon positive acupuncturist. He's developed this list of tips for building a sustainable practice along with an online greenhouse gas calculator for all to use. Now he’s looking for feedback and to pool
ideas, so please read on and get in touch 〉 joe@holistic-health.org.uk
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Joe Jennings
Member: Oxfordshire
From my two years of carbon research, I have found that the biggest and quickest gains are changing to a renewable energy provider and reducing heating as much as possible. Once that is done, as a service sector profession, most of our emissions come from the products that we use on a dayto-day basis.
Every little counts!
Creating a more sustainable practice doesn't have to be a huge feat, even one small change can help. Here are some environmentally friendly plastic alternatives and ideas that can reduce the pollution we produce as acupuncturists.
Transport
Swap the car for a bicycle: Cycling or walking more will reduce the amount of carbon we produce. We can also encourage our clients to do the same if they can.
Energy consumption
Swap fossil fuels for renewables: Switch to green energy suppliers or switch tariffs to renewable energy sources.
Carbon offsetting
Plant trees to offset your carbon emissions: Ecologi is one of several companies that plant trees and fund community projects around the world. Signing up is an easy and affordable way to offset your carbon starting at £4.70/ month 〉 ecologi.com
Needles
Swap copper needles for stainless steel: Using stainless steel needles is less polluting to the environment than copper. Highly toxic chemicals are used in the manufacturing of copper needles.
Consumables & PPE
Swap plastic for corn starch: Using corn starch bin bags for your general waste reduces plastic usage. Total PPE also manufacture 100 per cent corn starch PPE aprons 〉 tinyurl.com/yh293jk2
Guide tubes
Swap plastic for bamboo: Acurea now produce bamboo guide tubes, which is far more sustainable than plastic guide tubes. They also have 100 per cent recyclable packaging option 〉 tinyurl.com/mryh8v9d
Reusable bottles
Swap plastic bottles for refillable glass: Buy consumables in bulk where possible, and use refillable bottles for liquids such as sterilisation sprays and hand soaps.
Websites
Eco hosting: Another important and often overlooked area is our websites. Most hosting companies are not renewably powered and take a surprising amount of energy. To paraphrase OVO energy, if everyone in the UK sent one less email a day we would save over 16,000 tonnes of CO2e a year – the same as 8,1152 flights to Madrid. Data hosting uses a lot of carbon. Switch to a carbon zero hosting service like Eco Web Hosting 〉 ecowebhosting.co.uk
Even adopting just one of these ideas will help reduce the waste and carbon we produce as acupuncturists. Take a look at your own practice and reflect on ways you might be able to reduce your plastic usage.
Collective action
Although there are many ways to reduce our impact as individuals, there is only so far we can go with the products available to us. To really progress on that level, we'd need to come together and lobby our suppliers to reduce their carbon intensity towards carbon zero. We hope that this could be coordinated by our regulatory bodies. There are three clear asks we could come together to support right now which would have a big impact: 1 No plastic wrapping on any of our products: for the vast majority it is completely unnecessary, for others a corn starch wrap could be used. 2 All suppliers to exclusively use carbon neutral delivery companies,
DPD are a notable example. 3 All suppliers to start measuring their greenhouse gas emissions and make a plan to get to zero carbon.
Sadly, even after all of these changes, we will still have to offset a certain amount of our emissions. We will always have to use single use surgical grade steel that is incinerated after being used. These emissions will have to be offset. The tree planting scheme mentioned above or Gold Standard are great options 〉 goldstandard.org
Greenhouse gas calculator
As well as considering all of the above, I’d recommend measuring your greenhouse gas emissions to see where the biggest leaks are and figure out how to mitigate them.
Feel free to use the greenhouse gas calculator I developed specifically for acupuncturists. You can find it on my Holistic Health Oxford website – and if you have any issues or questions on how to use it, please just get in touch.
