Wool Heating Qualities Promoted

The Wool Carbon Alliance applauds world leaders serious about mitigating climate change, particularly those leading by example and who wore wool at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Wool suits, jackets and coats were all seen at the conference, an example of a natural thermal insulator with the capacity to reduce reliance on heating from fossil fuels. However, it is not the first time clothing has been used for such a message.

"Turn down the heating and put on a sweater" was the message from a campaign instigated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter during the oil crisis of 1979. Its message still has resonance 30 years later.

The European Commission states a household can cut its CO2 emissions by up to 300kg (661 pounds) a year and its energy bill by 5 percent to 10 percent simply by reducing its heating by just 1°C.

"Wearing wool, walking on wool and sleeping with wool are all ways of using this great renewable fiber in our everyday lives and in doing so think globally and act locally," Wool Carbon Alliance (WCA) Chairman Chick Olsson said.

Produced as part of the natural carbon process of plant sequestration and digestion, wool is made of 50 percent organic carbon by weight. The WCA is working to fill the research gaps, investing how much carbon flows through soils, plants and animals on farms. In doing so, it explores the opportunity for such land-based systems to sequester more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Reprinted in part from Farm Weekly Australia