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 >
Hypothetical Energy Conserving Family Plan
If money were of no concern, and I was able to design a more energy efficient house for myself and my family, I would start first by building it within walking or biking distance from my school and/or the other school that my brothers attend. This would mean that the only carbon-emissions from cars would be when my parents go to work or the occasional weekend grocery shopping trip. The house would have a set of solar panels on the roof, and LED lights in every room. There would be a large and central room in the house that could be illuminated efficiently by as few light bulbs as possible, and that could be where my brothers and I did our homework without wasting energy by working in separate rooms with unnecessary lights on. The house would have the best insulation possible in order to spend less energy heating or cooling the place down. My family would also buy locally grown organic food, and we would recycle all possible materials as well. In summary, walking o r biking to school, lighting areas more effectively, and maintaining a house's temperature with the least amount of energy are the main ways that my family could help the environment.