Happy Earth Day: sustainable lifestyle kickoff

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

To begin our journey off right, we want to set some concrete personal goals, and what better day to start than this!  

First and foremost, we need to determine where we stand regarding our carbon footprint. Carbon footprint measures the total carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted and produced to support human activities. Carbon emissions contribute greatly to climate change, and its adverse effects pose serious consequences for all of us and our environment. By starting our journey with being aware of our personal carbon footprint, we can evaluate how our current ways affect the earth and how to go forward in the future. 

We used the Global Footprint Network's Footprint Calculator to evaluate our current consumption. 

This calculator does a good job of helping you visualize how much resources you use up in your everyday life: it calculates your carbon footprint and it puts the amount of resources you consume in terms of the number of Earths you need. Additionally, it also calculates your ecological footprint, which measures how fast you consume resources in comparison to how fast nature can absorb waste and generate new resources. The main consumption categories the calculator takes into account are food, shelter, mobility, goods, and services. What's really amazing about the results you get with this calculator is that they provide insight into areas that need improvement as well as practical solutions to reduce your footprint. 

We encourage you to take this quick test, too! Aside from the valuable insight you get from the results which gives you a direction if you want to take on a similar journey as ours, its cool graphic user interface makes going through the process quite entertaining as well. 

Our results:

Paula

• Ecological footprint: 2.6 gha

• Carbon footprint: 3.8 tonnes or 51% of my global footprint

• If everyone lived like me we would need 1.5 Earths

• The majority of my footprint comes from food, followed by services and goods.

Areas for improvement:

Goals regarding food

• Buy more unprocessed and unpackaged food

  • Buy more things that are grown or produced locally

    • Luckily, here in Vic, there are TONS of eco-conscious restaurants that are farm-to-table, use local and/or organic ingredients, or make efforts to produce less waste (like no straws).

    • I need to be better about seeking unpackaged and local foods, instead of just opting for what's convenient and what's right in front of me.

    • I'd also like to look into what's local—what's coming from farms near me?

  • Opt away from red meats, instead buy poultry, and even better, opt for plant-based proteins.

Goals regarding shopping

• Do I really need it? If not, don’t buy it!

• Buy to replace, not just out of temptation.

• Clothes: ultimate goal is to buy exclusively second-hand or from ethical and responsible brands. If it's not either of those: do I need it? Is it high quality, will it last me more than a season?

Henrika

• Ecological footprint: 4.8 gha

• Carbon footprint: 8.4 tonnes or 60% of my global footprint

• If everyone lived like me we would need 2.8 earths

• A huge part of my carbon footprint comes from mobility. This is because I travel to the Philippines, my homeland, at least once yearly. This is about 6,700 miles away from Canada, which is where I am currently based for school. With a directly flight, it takes me 26 hours in total to travel back and forth. 

Areas for improvement:

Goals regarding mobility

• Only fly back home when I can stay there for at least 3 weeks

  • This will cut the number of times I go back home in a year since I've traveled back for as few as 10 days. Aside from reducing my carbon footprint, this will help me get a better value for my dollar.

• Walk to places that I need to get to within the vicinity instead of driving

  • Fortunately, my place is only a 10-minute walk away from campus, and about half an hour walk away from a local grocery, a pharmacy, and a few coffee shops.

  • This goal is more difficult to achieve during the winter months when it's cold and gray outside as the path to these areas are uphill. But thankfully, summer is coming soon! 

  • I also need to do a better job of allotting enough time to walk back and forth to these places to avoid the excuse of being "too busy" and not having that much "time to waste" for walking. 

Goals regarding food

• Grow some of my own food

  • One of the things I really want to try doing is to start growing some ingredients I use in making food. These include herbs like basil and microgreens like kale and spinach.

• Avoid food waste by buying fresh food more often in lesser quantity

  • Since fresh vegetables spoil quickly, I will have to only buy what I know I can cook and consume in a short time span.

  • I will also need to learn how to use leftover food, using only available ingredients, to create a new dish. 

Our aim for this blog is to document our journey into treating the planet better, and along the way, we hope to educate others and inspire them to take part in this mindset. At the end of the day, the idea is to leave it better than we found it. It's pretty easy to get discouraged, and to feel that as one person, your actions don't have a large impact, but they do! Small efforts and a change of mindset will help get us in the habit of thinking with the planet in mind. 

To give ourselves and our readers a push in the right direction, we've come up with a list of five easy things to do:

1. Turn it off! Turn off appliances, taps, lights, etc. when you're done using them i.e., don't keep the tap running while you brush your teeth, turn off the lights when you leave the room

2. Skip the express shipping! Do you really need that item within 48 hours? Really? Or can you wait the extra week or two? While it's super convenient and can save us when we're in a pinch, expedited deliveries add to our carbon emissions. Think about it: normally, the truck carrying your things would be loaded up to the brim before leaving the warehouse. Using express shipping means sending out emptier trucks, more often, so they can get to their destinations faster.

3. BYOB – Bring your own bags (and cups)! Next time you head out to restock your kitchen, bring a reusable bag with you! Heading out to get your daily fix of coffee or tea? Bring your own mug! If you have trouble remembering, keep some in your car and/or your backpack or purse.

4. Hang-dry your clothes! Got an extra day? Skip the dryer. Not only will you use less energy, your clothes will thank you! Hang drying won't wear your stuff down as much, or damage it (no more shrinking!), so they'll last you a lot longer.

5. Support Local!  If something is being produced by people in your area, choose to buy their goods and/or services instead of going for what's made abroad! Sometimes it may cost you a little bit more money to choose local, but think of how much environmental costs you spare when you choose to purchase locally! 

We hope you not only do your best to participate in Earth Day, but also incorporate some new habits into your everyday routine! These tips are a good starting point, but it’s definitely a good idea to take a moment to reflect on your own consumption habits and figure out what you should prioritize.