Top suburbs costing the Earth

SHOPPING has been exposed as the big culprit in rising water use and greenhouse gas emissions – and Sydney’s most affluent suburbs are the worst offenders.

New data shows the electricity and water used to produce everything people buy – from food and clothing to CDs and electrical appliances – far outweighs any efforts to save water and power in the home, according to an extensive analysis by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the University of Sydney.


Wealthy families in suburbs such as Woollahra, North Sydney, Mosman and Ku-ring-gai, who can afford to install solar power and large water tanks, still have the biggest ecological footprint because of the goods and services they buy.

Shopping habits represent such a large part of greenhouse gas emissions that even if every household switched to renewable energy and stopped driving cars tomorrow, total household emissions would fall by less than 20 per cent, the study found. On average, every additional dollar of consumption was responsible for 720 grams of greenhouse gas emissions and 28 litres of water.

Sydney Morning Herald