Conservation and efficiency

Reduction
Doing more with less

Globally energy (especially from fossil fuels) and many other resources that we take for granted like water and food, will become scarcer and therefore more expensive. By using less resources we can conserve what we have and be in a better position to live sustainably on renewable resources.

Conservation
Conserving is a matter of using less. This very simple concept is often very difficult to implement because of habits and ingrained attitudes and processes – personal, social and economic. Nevertheless we all have to make an effort to reduce consumption. There are many things that you can do.

From a personal point of view altering basic habits may be difficult to begin with but eventually they become second nature. In particular we should make an effort to teach good habits to our children. It is difficult to teach children if you aren't setting a good example.

You can reduce the amount of goods you consume by:

sharing – lending and borrowing
renting – if you can't borrow – there is no need to buy something if you are only going to use it once or twice.
buying durable, quality goods that last longer
taking good care of things so that they last longer
choosing to do without

Efficiency
Being efficient is a type of reduction. Efficiency can be defined as the ratio of the useful output to the input of any system. In New Zealand in 2002 196.21 petajoules of fossil fuel energy was delivered for transport use. However, only 28.84 petajoules of that energy was useful output. In other words the efficiency, shown as a ratio, was a paltry 14.7%. Internal combustion engines are very inefficient because most of the energy used is lost as heat and, to a lesser extent, friction.

In this case efficiency is a technological issue. New technologies are continually being developed which are much more efficient. We can make a difference by always choosing the most efficient options whether they are houses, appliances, cars or machines.

Zero waste
An outcome of efficiency is less waste. In fact this is another way of defining efficiency. We need to look at ways to minimise waste – including emmissions and wastewater.