- Embrace self-sufficiency. Even if it’s only lettuce in a pot, you can grow your own vegetables, in your garden or through an allotment – contact the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners at www.allotment.org.uk for information. Make compost and save waste with kitchen peelings, bio-degradable household rubbish such as vacuum cleaner waste and teabags, and a wormery – see www.greengardener.co.uk for advice. If you have the space, consider keeping hens for free-range eggs.

- Buy local food locally. Take bags to the supermarket to cut down on plastic-carrier use. If you drive, cut down the weekly shop into a fortnightly one to save fuel usage and emissions. And when you get there, don’t choose out-of-season foods flown in using thousands of air-miles.

- Hand over all those accumulated carrier bags to a local charity shop which will save money on packaging by re-using them.

- Save paper by doing as many transactions online as possible. Shred old bills in a paper shredder (battery-operated and mains-powered models are available) and use as bedding for pets, or add to the compost heap if not too saturated with un-biodegradable ink.

Related Internet Links

• Property guides

A guide to househunting on the web

Househunting goes high-tech: technology is transforming the way we search for our next home. Our buyers test-drive top property websites

• A step-by-step guide to selling your home

• Gumtree founder, Simon Crookall, puts his £1.5m home for sale online

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• Why can’t we sell our home?

• ‘I didn’t want a profit; I just wanted out’

• How to sell your home in a hurry

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• Overseas property: where, how and what to buy

• How to get onto the property ladder

• Guide to buying above a shop

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• How to sell your home

• Buying a property at auction

• Home improvement

• Eco homes

• Step-by-step guide to buying your first property

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• The eco-hamlet that Sir Terence Conran built

• The green temple of timber

• Is 2008 the year Britain finally goes green?

• Boost for green energy in the home

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• A waste of energy

• Ask the Experts: The self-builder

• Lucy Pinney

• How green is my mansion?

• Delighted of Tunbridge Wells

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• Flying the green flag

• Never mind bricks, clutch at straws

• Don’t be a dope: build with hemp

• Living: House of straw

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• A home made of straw?

• Waste not, want not

• Ask the Experts: The self-builder

• Accidental eco-build

Related Links

• Top ten ways of making your home eco-friendly

Cost calculator

Loft insulation - from £274

Cavity wall insulation – from £250

Top A-rated boiler and central heating system - from £2,000

Double-glazed windows – from around £200 each

Thermostatic radiator valves – from £10 each

Automatic boiler timer – from £10

Energy saving light-bulbs – from around £3 per bulb

Water butt kit for rainwater - around £30

Rain-water harvesting system – between £2,000 and £3,000

Grey-water system – from £3,000

Solar panels – average domestic system, £5,000- £8,000 per kWp installed, with most domestic systems usually operating at between 1.5 and 3 kWp

Wind turbines – roof-mounted, from £1,500

Bio-mass heaters - from £3,000 for a stand-alone room heater to between £5,500-£12,000 for a boiler to heat a three-bedroomed semi, plus bio-mass fuel.

Composting kit with wormery – around £60