Want to avoid adding a comfy but cringe-worthy layer of winter fat this year? Turn your heating down – apparently you burn calories trying to keep warm. (And no, that doesn't meant you're allowed an extra dollop of custard on your sticky toffee pud).

 

Lowering the heat has other advantages too, including financial. Last winter, we bundled up and tried to keep the thermostat down (along with not using the dryer, turning off lights when leaving rooms and switching to eco bulbs). We watched the savings add up 'instantly' on our new Efergy meter, and it was right – when we finally let the meter reader in, we were £400 in credit, a great excuse to switch finally to a green electricity supplier. Lest you worry I'm becoming a smug green goddess, read on. Just after switching suppliers I plugged in my hot rollers to get glammed up for an evening out (indulge my little luxuries, please) and in my haste, forgot to unplug them until the next afternoon. Hardly the icon of efficiency, then. Also, we switched to a mainstream green tariff, but I subsequently learned from The Nag that our plan didn't actually increase the amount of renewable energy produced. The Nag recommends Good Energy or Ecotricity’s New Energy Plus, so I've just had to switch again.

 

This week (22-28 October) is Energy Saving Week, so there's no time like the present for each of us to tighten our green belt. Every day has a theme: Monday is Women's Day, Tuesday is Work Day, Wednesday is Digital Day, Thursday is Families Day, Friday is Men's Day, Saturday is Home Improvers Day and Sunday is Faith Day. Visit the Energy Saving Trust website for ideas to incorporate into your week – and perhaps into the rest of your life. Click here to make your commitment to save your 20%.

 

Hopefully some Hampshire residents will be clicking. According to a new analysis by CarbonPlan and the Stockholm Environment Institute, the fragrant folk of  Winchester require 6.52 hectares each to support them in the style to which they've become accustomed. If everyone lived this way, we'd need over 3.6 planets, something money can't buy. But it can, apparently, buy happiness – did anyone else notice that Winchester was also recently named as the best place in England to live (according to Location, Location, Location). The problem is, what we perceive as giving us the good life isn't so good for the planet.

 

The Winchester City Council isn't taking the CarbonPlan study lightly; it has stepped up its efforts to raise awareness and improve its eco cred, with a Carbon Management Programme and a Climate Change Plan. And anyway, it seems the people of Winchester (and some of my best friends are from Winchester) are not alone. Many of us are becoming cynical about the green message, sceptical that anyone else is doing anything to make a difference and prone to exaggerating our own green actions, according to a new Eco Attitudes report by ICM, released today for the Ideal Home Show.

Men are the naughtiest, with a third believing too much attention is given to green issues, and 19% thinking small behavioural changes won't make any difference. Men scored worse than women on almost every aspect of green living, including recycling, buying sustainable materials, using eco bulbs, turning down the heating, washing at low temperatures and filling the kettle frugally. Forget domestics over who's holding the remote, the report found green arguments aplenty, with 15% of us squabbling with partners about saving our home comforts vs saving the planet.

 

Apparently, Brits are suffering from eco fatigue, with a third of us tired of the attention given to eco issues and 23% being bored by eco news. Cheer up – the evening news will be absolutely gripping when additional wars break out over diminishing oil and water supplies, and weather-related disasters occur weekly. In the meantime, stock up on some earth-kind cardis, jumpers, scarves and even gloves and turn down your thermostat.