I spend a lot of time working with the Zerofootprint Edmonton Kids Calculator since it’s the focus of the school environmental program that I deliver. There is also an adult calculator that I don’t get to use as much. You can find the link to it on the side menu at www.edmonton.ca/ecovision. If you’re like me, you have probably used this calculator once then never come back. You find out what your footprint is and then you move on. But I’ve decided that I’m going to try to use it as a long-term tool.
I started using the Kids Calculator because I wanted to see how low I could get my individual footprint so that I had a sort of baseline for the students I talked to. I was stunned by the difference that some things make over others. For example, being vegan (eating nothing that comes from animals), reduces an individual footprint by more than two tonnes of CO2. Although it’s a great tool, the Kids Calculator tends to be very general and I began to wonder what changes I could make, and how much of an impact I could have, if I was using the adult version.
The nice thing is that the calculators on the City of Edmonton website are designed especially for Edmonton. I think this makes it more useful for me because, for example, reducing electricity use in Edmonton has a greater impact than it does in other places because of the high proportion of coal used to generate our electricity.
I’m going to attempt to reduce my footprint by making changes in different areas of my life. For example, my husband and I will try to go vegetarian for a week, or I won’t drive my car for a week. I’m even hoping to use this as an incentive to do some of the things we’ve been meaning to do for ages but just haven’t found the time, like setting up a compost bin. At the end of each challenge, I’ll report on how successful I was and what challenges I faced in completing the task. I’ll also use the Zerofootprint Edmonton Calculator to figure out what my new footprint would be if I was able to maintain my changes. What I really hope is that my efforts will do two things: decrease my impact on the Earth and hopefully, inspire someone else to not just calculate their footprint, but to find ways to make it smaller.
At the moment I have a carbon footprint of 7.4 tonnes of CO2. To put that into perspective, it would take an average of 686 trees to absorb that much CO2 every year. To be honest, I’m not sure how far I can reduce my footprint. I’ve already agreed to 3.64 tonnes in reductions through commitments on the website. My challenge is to make sure that I have met all of those commitments, but I’m really hoping that I can do some extra as well.
Mission One:
Go carless. For the first two weeks of May I’m going to see if I can go without a car. That includes going to meetings or seeing friends. I have had the U-Pass – which turns my University ID into a bus pass – for the past 8 months so I tend to keep my car parked most of the time anyway. But the U-Pass ends at the end of April, leaving me to decide how I want to get around without my car.
I’ll let you know how it goes.