I wasn’t always especially green.

For quite a few years, I was pretty passive about saving energy and CO2 emissions, used to fly for business quite a lot and mostly just did the basics like recycling at home.

In 2023 I got involved with Climate Habits, an idea ahead of its time launched by Judith Porter. It combines behaviour change techniques and the accountability to a group of your colleagues in the workplace, and applies them to helping you make more sustainable choices in your home life. I’ve written more about what I enjoyed about that project over on my main blog.

Around the same time, we were doing a major renovation project at the house we’d recently moved into, so there were lots of decisions to make – and plenty of tradeoffs between money and sustainability. I’d also got into woodworking and starting to try and source salvaged wood (and other stuff for the house) including via the local re-use app, Olio (my wife had been doing surplus food collections for a while).

In summer 2023, our (hybrid) car was out of action for several months which pushed me into getting an EV for the school run, a Kia e-Niro 4+. Looking back, researching used EV options, learning to live with an EV, how to maximise range and talk to curious strangers about it was probably my first step into becoming a Net Zero Dad.

We got started on the house renovation in earnest in early 2024, starting with double glazing and insulation upgrades to our 1970s detached bungalow. Later that year we had a Vaillant Arotherm+ 10kw air source heat pump installed, followed in autumn 2025 by 7kWp solar panels, a Fox KH7 7kW inverter and 20kWh of EP-11 batteries.

Alongside those things, there have been a load of little sustainable upgrades: big water butts connected up to our downpipes; a variable temperature kettle; an air fryer and induction hob; insulating a summerhouse and more. I also got involved with Beckenham and Penge Repair Cafe, where volunteer repairers fix household items for local people for free.

A lot of these things come with apps, dashboards and above all, the scope to measure, tweak and optimise. As a technology-minded person, supported by AI and Facebook groups of knowledgable folks, it feels like a great time to be exploring and experimenting.

This blog is where I aim to describe some of those upgrades, and a place to share some of the tools I’ve been experimenting with to help optimise my own setup and help others to understand the costs and benefits to different green technologies.