Considered Your Holiday Home Carbon Footprint?

Research just released suggests that owning a property abroad may not only make a substantial dent on your finances but might also be bad for your and the planet’s health.

According to currency specialist HiFX, your dream home from home can increase your individual carbon footprint by as much as 28%, especially if you travel to your holiday home frequently and cheaply, using bargain airlines.

In fact, it has been calculated that it is those sunseekers with a second home in Cyprus who contribute most to their ‘additional’ carbon footprint, as people statistically visit their property more often than those owning homes elsewhere. With averages taken into account, the typical Cyprus second homer adds over 4.3 tonnes of carbon to their annual carbon output by travelling to and from and residing in their property. The average is 2.79 tonnes, although owning a second home in South Africa increases your annual carbon footprint by 4.2 tonnes, Canada adds 3.4 and Cape Verde 4.08.

In this supposedly greener millennium, where people are encouraged to accumulate environmentally friendly ‘greenie’ points by recycling and choosing environmentally sensible alternatives, some 78% of the population claim to be making some effort to reduce their own individual impact on the environment. However, environmental friendliness seems to be subject to certain conditions as a massive 64% of the same population does not consider the environmental costs of travelling to and from an international property, let alone the energy used while abroad, thought to be literally tonnes of additional carbon. As many as 41% of those questioned said they were unconcerned about carbon emissions from their foreign property.