Climate change and the impact it will have on our environment has been called one of the biggest threats to humanity. Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" has made a tremendous impact worldwide and for the first time countries are seriously looking at their carbon footprint and how they can reduce it.

Tourists are also increasingly looking at a destination's "green score" when planning their holiday and Knysna Tourism did some research to see just how green our score will be.

We started with our forests. Planting trees is listed as one of the ways to offset your carbon footprint. Knysna is surrounded by more that 80 000 ha of forests which roughly calculates to about 12 million trees. As trees absorb carbon dioxide, Knysna definitely starts with a comfortable credit!

The feedback from our members was as impressive - we were amazed at the number of members that had solar heating and rainwater tanks installed. What was even more impressive was the number of active vermiculture projects, a composting process that uses earthworms and micro-organisms to convert organics into nutrient-rich humus.

As Knysna Tourism is getting more and more queries from operators with regards to our green initiatives, we are in the process of starting a database that will enable us to give feedback in terms of projects in the Knysna area.

For those of you that have not yet send us your information, or know of anything happening in the area, please send us the information to update our database.

Maybe our efforts can match the hard work already done by the trees in our forests! Here is some tips on how to do things "the green way":

* Washing machine habits
80 - 85 percent of the energy used to wash clothes comes from heating the water, and a hot water wash can generate up to 5 times the amount of greenhouse gases than a cold wash. Avoid washing clothes on a 60C setting and instead choose the 40C, 30C or cold wash settings.

* Dry your clothes on the washing line
Using a machine to dry your clothes releases up to 3kg of CO2 into the atmosphere for every load, tally up the number of loads you dry in a week, a month, a year and it quickly adds up to a significant portion of your carbon footprint. South Africa's blessed with one of the highest number of days of sunlight per a year in the world, so use a washing line instead!

* Cooking
Never use a pot that's smaller than the hob, you'll just be making your cooker work hard to make hot air and using pot lids as much as possible will allow the contents inside to heat more quickly with the stove on a lower setting. Using a microwave to cook or reheat food uses half the electricity of using an electric stove.

* Fridge use
Fridge Freezers are electricity hungry, but there are many simple ways to reduce how much they use and improve their efficiency. Fill up empty space in the freezer compartment with old newspaper. Also check the thermostats to ensure they are set at the correct temperature, fridges should be between 2C - 3C and freezers no less than -15C.

For more information on these and other tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint, visit www.harmoniousliving.co.za

The web is a wealth of information - also visit the website www.greenspace.co.za which provides a directory of environmentally preferable products and services available in South Africa.

Visit www.greenstuff.co.za for a directory of green products to encourage environmentally responsible procurement. Eco- friendly products for happy guests and a healthy planet. 

An excellent book on "Going Green" is available from the author, Simon Gear, called Going Green - 365 Ways to Change Our World - Making our planet a better place, one day at a time. ISBN number 9780143025931.

See our "What`s Hot" section on the homepage for our weekly tips for Going Green.