Hi there!
I'm Mario Borna, a 17-year-old gymnasium student from Požega, Croatia. You've met my classmate and friend Ružica in her post about her footprint which inspired me to share my results with you.

My total footprint is around 8,738 kg of CO2 per year, which is frankly quite high and I'm a bit ashamed.

I totaled more than double the average in the Transportation category as I travel to school every day and generally travel a lot. Unfortunately, as it's currently freezing, I have to take the train or go by car because environment-friendly alternatives such as biking would be... awful, but nevertheless, I feel as if I've been awful to the environment and I'll try to find ways to travel _greener_.

Furthermore, I've totaled almost double the average in the Home category and it's sadly the best we can currently do due to the fact that our house is badly insulated as it was built a long long time ago when energy efficiency was in its infancy and adapting it would be highly expensive. We use gas to heat our house which, thankfully, is friendlier towards the environment  than wood or coal are, but is still worse than electricity or solar energy (which would also be a significant investment).

I've also totaled above average in the Food category, primarily due to the fact I eat a lot of meat as it's my family's tradition. However, I've decided to diet better and I've started cooking for myself when I get the chance, usually making vegetarian meals. (For instance, I made cheese-filled waffles the other day )

In the Purchases category I've totaled -14, mostly because I buy things with little to no packaging, rarely buy items like water bottles, always bring my own bag into a store and rarely buy or get electronics.

However, I'm still doing some things well For a start, I try to recycle as much as I can and we have a garden where we grow our own vegetables over the summer while composting scraps. I avoid takeaway restaurants in favor of eating at home or in my school's cafeteria. I air dry clothes, turn off heating completely during the summer, wash dishes by hand and more. Furthermore, we've recently replaced all of our incandescent light bulbs with more energy-efficient light bulbs - LEDs and CFLs, making our home just a bit friendlier towards our planet.

I hope you enjoyed my write-up of my footprint and I'd be glad to hear your thoughts on reducing it.

Dear Mario, thank you so much for sharing the details of your efforts - you are doing a great job!  Reducing your food footprint is probably the easiest thing that you can do now to reduce your impact - we realize that the home footprint is often the most difficult one for students to do anything about, but you can think about what kind of home *you* would want when you get the opportunity to have your own place!  You mentioned drying clothes outside - I also dry close inside - you should see our apartment on Laundry day!  We have pipes in our apartment that are warm so I hang our clothes on there and they dry overnight! 

What other ideas do you all have to help Mario lower his footprint even more?