I am temporarily helping my brother cut his electricity and heating costs in half, I did it by simply renting half of his house!

Remember that, when you think you cannot do an improvement on expensive heating costs, you could take on a tennant!

Every couple that moves in together will reduce lots of emissions and costs, that once was on each of their apartment. Into one shared cost and carbon footprint. (not always every cost is cut in half, but at least reduced sligthly from the total of 2 persons living in 2 separate places)


In sweden there is record amount of single person households! especially in capital stockholm!
Lots of big private homes that only 1-2 persons inhabit, lots of extra space to heat up. I think we should stop measuring living space in square metres, and instead measure the volumes: cubic metres.
in that way the size could be seen as economical or expensive as opposed to future heating costs. And we could avoid people building too large rooms and too high ceilings, the air volume above 2,5m roof height is extremely expensive to keep habitable in our winters.
Maybe we also could encourage people in old homes to retrofit insulation on the both internal and external of the walls with changing this measurement reform???

I am:
Industrial Designer, Artist, Graphic Designer and Product Developer with a devoted "green focus" and on trying to replace obsolete and inefficient products.

Extremely extreme in my green and anti-consumeristic living pattern.
I am part owner of a design shop that makes products from second-hand-clothing and old flea-market-stuff and so on.

I sold my car in 1999.
I have drastically reduced my electricity bill by shutting off my deep-freezer and sold my tv. My apartment building is heated with bio-fuels.
I try to be way below the european average in all aspects of my carbon footprint and climate impact.
I always walk or ride bicycle within the city. I work from home.
I eat more and more vegetarian food. Try to eat fish instead of meat.
One year I did an experiment when I only bought food (2007 was my personal Buy-Nothing-Year)
I recycle extremely carefully, already when I choose products in the shops.
And as a result I have reduced my total garbage waste to 1kg per year.

I am very careful with my clothes so that they last longer, and try to keep them clean so I do not have to wash them too often.

I do not have any telephone anymore. It was just a waste of time and money.

I never buy a new object on impulse. I very rarely buy new presents for other people, I try to create something unique and special, it gets more personal that way.

Now, if someone will claim that my computer use is a waste, i can argue that my current computer have replaced all of the following objects (and services) from my life :
TV, Cinema, DVD-player, CD-player, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, Books, Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Maps, Games, Telephones, Typewriter, Calculators, Mail, Paying my bills, Musical Instruments.
Google Earth and Panoramio and Flickr have reduced my vacations and travelling by a lot. I do not travel anymore to other cities to go to concerts or art exhibitions. (it is much more marvellous to watch TED-talks, Discovery Channel and GreenTV online than it is to fly to Thailand one week each year)

And, this computer is only the third that I ever bought. And I spend a bit more money on them, so that they will last longer. My previous Apple G3 worked perfectly for more than 11 years. I now have a Apple Mini that is extremely small and energy efficient. I still use the same monitor that I bought in 1996!!! (but i am looking for a new one that will be most energy efficient and last many years)

My personal electricity-efficiency-project is very fun, and seems succesful. I am down to 1,44kWh/day now! (not including hot water heater or central heating, which is powered with a city-wide central hot water system powered by bio fuel)

all my light bulbs are now in only 2W and 7W LED low emission versions from Philips, and i am surprised that their quality and colour tone is very good.
And now it is summertime, so there are at least 16 hours of daylight right now, so the need for artificial lights are minimal for at least 5 months.

And my new computer monitor that I bought at the end of last year seems to use less than 20% of my 14 year old monitor.

The daily average temperature outside is now over 12 degrees, so I restarted my fridge again. However I stuffed half of it full of styrofoam pieces and three big bottles of cold water, to reduce the volume of air the fridge will need to chill. ( It takes less than 2 hours to get it down to correct working temperature )
Also the styrofoam and amount of water is acting as an equalizing agent to keep all the cool energy stay inside the fridge every time i open the door.

my cooking habits have further been perfected, I can now boil eggs using electricity for only 30-40 seconds. It was needed to start eating eggs again, because i did not get sufficient proteins on the experimental vegan diet that I tried. (and i was sick and tired of eating so much beans and nuts)

I also started to eat real butter and use real double cream in the coffee. My guess is that all Low-fat and Light-products are dangerous to peoples health. Especially the types where the real sugar have been replaced with the artificially produced chemical types of sugar.
My theory (and some of the scientists) is that pregnant women and young children should not eat those artificial additives at all, for the sake of their brain growth and not becoming obese and reducing risks of getting diabetes.

Johan, I'm thinking of one of those climate calcs that estimate how many earths you need to live your lifestyle and I think you must be one of the very few people who only need 1 planet or less to live on :) To simplicity...cheers!

That is INDEED a very long testimonial but a very inspiring one too! I have to confess that I may not be living up to your strap line much (dying of guilt here**) but I definitely feel inspired to start somewhere. It's just probably easier to live up to it in a place like Newzealand than in Mumbai. Just about yest, as I was walking down the street, I had this overwhelming feeling that I am walking in a garbage bin! It stinks, it's dirty, it's crowded and the weather is just not helping. It would be interesting if there could be a way to get the people of Mumbai to adapt a lifestyle that talks about lesser consumption! But as I try hard not to drift away from your testimonial...BRAVO! at your lifestly. you are living role model..and hope you realize that! Cheers! :)

Johan, you are an inspiration! I simply love you strap line "Buy less crap – work little less – live more – feel richer" - applaude!

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Johan,
Wow! Insane passion for environmental responsibility! And I thought I was obsessed with recycling! You are the Jedi master if you have your waste down to 1kg a year! I am very impressed! If everyone did even 25% of what you do the world's garbage production would drastically decrease. I love your idea of buying nothing but food for one year. Very difficult I think. But your point is well taken - we all consume way too much stuff! My sense is that you are a sort of performance artist in a way. Your life is lived out in a kind of performance art showing the limitations -and possibilities- of living without mindlessly consuming.
I like it! I like it! I like it!
You are crazy - but an inspiration!
Thank you!.. and keep up the good work!:)