Many students using our footprint calculator said that they could not pledge to reduce their home footprints because they were not making the decisions for the household. Here is your chance to design your own sustainable virtual household!
If you had your own home, what would you do to make it more energy efficient? Where would you get your electricity from? Where would your house be? Would you live near to your school or work or local transit options? Where would you get your food from?
MY Family Footprint >
My Carbon Footprint
When my survey finished and it turned out my carbon footprint was 55% higher than the average in my area, I was shocked. My family has two electric cars, solar panels, no AC, all LED lights, etc. Turns out that all my categories except one were below average; but my transportation footprint was far higher than the average. This is because of how much I fly. I fly back and forth to Hawaii, a 5 hour flight, multiple times a year to visit my grandparents. I did not realize that, according to the New York Times, a round trip flight of 2,500 miles each way creates 2-3 tons of carbon dioxide per passenger. So despite everything my family does, like with the electric cars and solar panels, we still ended up polluting significantly higher than we (in order to create a sustainable world) should. So the number one thing I can do to make a cleaner future is to fly less.