How our home joined the climate fight

Buying a house can be really stressful. Climate change amplifies uncertainty: risks lurk in new places with every tenth of a degree of warming.

Thankfully, house buying also offers us agency. The house my partner and I bought – a beautiful little apartment great for starting a family – does more than protect us from disasters. It's helped us join the fight to protect a safe climate.

Last time, I explored how we avoided the risks that come with house buying in a warming world. This week, we’re going to talk about how the house we chose makes a low pollution life easy and fun.

We secured great transport options

By far, the biggest choice we made to keep our pollution low was buying near a great bus line.

For most Kiwi, transport is one of the biggest sources of pollution in their life. The average New Zealander drives about 11,000km a year. If they’re driving the average petrol car, each year their vehicle creates about two tonnes of pollution.

Unfortunately, driving is often the only realistic choice for many households. Too many homes out there are only served by an hourly bus. Walking anywhere might mean trekking along a stinky highway on neglected footpaths. The closest supermarket might be too far to bike to.

Thankfully, Wellington offers far more transport choice than other places. We are blessed with multiple solid bus routes that run every 10 minutes. Our train lines are good for commutes. The central city is tight knit and walkable.

We prioritised laying down roots in a place that offered an abundance of great options to get around. Our apartment has made it fun to walk to the supermarket. My partner and I can walk home from the theatre – it only takes 10 minutes. We can easily bus or bike to the beach. We use electric Mevos to pick up furniture or spend a late night out of the city. Multimodal choice has given us more freedom and saved 95% of the pollution we would use depending on a petrol car.

It’s only easy because our house is doing most of the work for us. Though we care about the climate, we are also lazy. We almost always choose the most convenient method to get from A to B. If it took an hour of walking to get anywhere, we’d probably drive everywhere. Our house has empowered us to make the lazy choice the low pollution one.

We electrified everything

Our home helps us fight climate change by running exclusively on electricity.

Our electricity grid produces tiny amounts of pollution compared to the rest of the world. As of writing, in 2025 New Zealand's grid has created about 89 grams of carbon per unit of electricity. Australia’s grid has created closer to 550 grams per unit. Our power is astoundingly clean. Running a house on electricity is not only more affordable (especially when you have solar), it produces significantly less carbon.

At each open home, we checked whether water heating and cooking depended on gas. If it did, it was a red flag. To save money in the long run and cut our household’s pollution, we’d need to spend to upgrade those appliances.

Instead, we chose an apartment that already runs on electricity. We chose a newer place with good insulation, a modern hot water cylinder, a good electric stovetop and electric heating.

In total, running our house creates 360kg of carbon a year. It’s two thirds less than what we'd create running our house on gas. Since apartments are so easy to keep warm, our power bill is pretty low too – just $140 a month in the depths of winter.

There are opportunities for everyone to live in a climate superstar home

We love apartment living. We can go to a late night movie and still be in bed by 10:30 – the dream! Our home is accessible, close to friends, and sustainable.

We put roots down in the central city because it made enjoying Wellington incredibly easy. Our apartment gives us more opportunities to go out, see friends, and be part of our community. What we've saved on power and petrol goes towards paternity leave and local businesses.

I'll sing from the rooftops the benefits of apartment living, but I know the ideal house is highly personal. We all have different preferences, different priorities, different ideal lifestyles. It matters a lot that we can choose between trade offs that fit us.

Thankfully, there are options to live a low pollution life for all kinds of homes. If you adore the idea of a garage for your car, an EV is ready to radically upgrade your driving life. If you'd rather a townhouse, solar can make your power more resilient and affordable.

Taking the pollution out of transport and power, regardless of the shape of your house, will save thousands of kilograms of pollution from getting into the air every year. The more of us who electrify everything, the cooler the world will be.

Unlike any other point in human history, the most affordable and quality ways to live are also the ways that safeguard our world for future generations. There has never been a better time to join the climate fight. With the right considerations, your next home can make that fight a whole lot easier.