Measure your eco-footprint
Online calculators make it easy to gauge your impact on the environment
Is your lifestyle ecologically correct? Meaning, are you living an ecologically sustainable lifestyle that won’t put future generations at risk because it puts a strain on the earth’s resources? One of the steps you can take to ensure that you are living an ‘ecologically correct lifestyle is to know your ecological footprint, which is the estimated area of land and sea needed to support your consumption of food, goods, services, housing, and energy. It is usually expressed in terms of global hectares, and the number of planet earths needed to support the human population if everyone lived your kind of lifestyle. For example, if your eco-footprint is 2.5 earths, then it means that you aren’t leading an ecologically sustainable lifestyle, because the earth won’t be able to sustain its current population if everyone lived the same way that you do.
It is now easy to know the size of your ecological footprint by using online calculators. These calculators usually ask you a set of questions regarding your lifestyle, such as what kind of house you live in or what you eat. Your footprint is then calculated based on your answers to these questions. Here are two good calculators on the web:
Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator
http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.html
This calculator is great to try out with kids because of its interactive and visual interface that makes it fun and easy to do. It starts by asking you to make an avatar (a virtual version of you) by selecting your gender, hairdo, and the color of your clothes. Your avatar then appears in a virtual 3D landscape, where elements are added as you answer questions such as what kind of food you eat, where you live, and what kind of transportation you take. For example, if you say you eat meat, a meat shop appears. If you say you live in a multi-storey building, a multi-storey building materializes. You also have a choice between entering basic information (which will give faster results) and detailed information (which will give more accurate results) for every question. The results express your footprint in terms of global hectares and planets, and also include a pie graph which shows the breakdown of your footprint in terms of the proportion of consumption of resources in terms of food, shelter, mobility, goods, and services. Because of its interactive interface, it is easy to explore different scenarios to change your footprint – like turn into a vegan and stop eating meat and dairy, walk to work everyday, or generate less rubbish. Every time you change your actions, you can see the changes to your footprint. You can save also your footprint, and then come back to it when you have made actual changes to your lifestyle. One limitation is that the current version of this calculator is based on data for those living in the US and Australia. But according to its developers, an enhanced, data-rich version is being developed which will enable people around the world to calculate their footprints with data specific to their region.
Ecological Footprint Quiz
Although less visual and interactive than the Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator, the Ecological Footprint Quiz allows you to specify what country you live in, making the results more accurate. Once you choose your country, it automatically inputs country averages for some questions (for example, what percentage of electricity is generated from renewable energy). Some questions may need you to take out your calculator, such as how many kilometers you travel each year for each mode of transportation. Some questions have links which open a window explaining some of the items (for example, the benefits of green buildings). The resulting footprint is expressed in terms of number of planets and global hectares in terms of consumption categories: carbon (home energy use and transportation), food, housing, and goods and services. It also breaks down your footprint by type of ecosystem: cropland, pastureland, forestland, and marine fisheries. A good feature is that it shows how your footprint compares to your country average, which tells you whether you are using more or less resources than the average person in your country (the average for the Philippines is 1.7 global hectares). The website also has a section that provides you with options on how to reduce your footprint, such as using cleaner transport, adding energy savings features to your homes, and adopting energy saving habits.
Environment | rp | 07 January 2009 |
