People often ask what they can do to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

So I thought I would show what Toni and I have been doing at a personal level to reduce our emissions.

The first thing we did was we sold our Toyota Prado Four Wheel Drive and bought a Toyota Prius petrol-hybrid. This reduced the emissions from our transportation by 70% in one hit!!

Secondly we took steps to reduce the amount of thermal gain during summer into our house in Shenton Park. We installed 3M tinting on windows and bi-fold doors, we installed shade sales on the north side of the house, we installed whirlygig air vents in the roof and air vents in the ceiling. The end result is we only had to run the air conditioning twice during the summer, compared to just about continuously the previous summer. Click here for more information on this.

Eventually we sold our house in Shenton Park in order to be able to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle in the Perth hills. We bought a house in Piesse Brook and have been in the process of transforming the gardens from water guzzling (300 kilolitres per month consumed prior to us moving in) to water miser by eliminating non-natives and returning the garden to something closer to its native state (see before and after photos below).

We've started growing our own vegetables, which eliminated the emissions associated with transportation of vegetables bought at a store, and we are in the process of getting an Aquaponics system up and running which will see us being completely self-sufficient in vegetables, fish and shellfish.

Our new house has no airconditioning, and we have managed to survive two summers without it. We installed a double glazing window film to reduce the thermal gain on the hottest days at minimal cost. This was pretty effective for something that is essentially glad wrap - though if you have young kids you will have your work cut out stopping them from tearing holes in it which completely negates the benefit.

We've replaced all of the incandescent light globes with compact flourescents.

We've subscribed to 100% Natural Power from Synergy which means that all of our electricity is being generated from renewable sources. This has cost us about $170.00 per year which we think is pretty reasonable. If you want to sign-up to Green Power, give Synergy a call on 131353, or click here for more information at the Synergy website.

We've offset all our remaining emissions at www.carbonneutral.com.au

We've still got a long way to go. We are in the early stages of building a passive solar house which will have very low operating emissions. The house will feature:

• Photo-voltaic cells on the roof as part of a grid-connect system, will have double glazing on all windows;
• Glazing on the north of the house to maximise solar gain during winter;
• Polished concrete floors to increase thermal mass;
• Use of natural lighting during the day and compact flourescent and LED lighting during the night;
• Natural ventilation to minimise the need for fans;
• No artificial air conditioning;