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 >
Changes in my Family Footprint
Overall, I would say that my family is very conscious of our footprint and we try our best to reduce it as much as we can. My dad takes public transit to his work, and my mom and I carpool everyday. Additionally, we have a sky lights in our house and do our best to turn off lights whenever they are not being used.
One way that we don't use energy efficiently is when we wash our dishes. Currently, we wash all our dishes in a dishwasher that is very old and uses up lots of energy. If I had my own home, I would try my best to hand wash dishes in order to save energy. I know that hand washing dishes takes lots of time and is another way that could result in large amounts of water wastage, but I think that if I am aware of the amount of water I'm using and wash my dish right after I'm done using it, washing dishes by hand would be more energy efficient. Ideally, I would have solar panels installed in my home to serve as the source of electricity. Solar panels collecting energy from the natural world by converting sunlight into electricity saves lots of unnecessarily wasted energy that is used in the household. Also, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration's monthly energy review, transportation makes up 28% of used U.S. energy. Seeing that transportation is a large contributor to energy usage, I would live near my school, workplace, and in close proximity to a downtown area in order to reduce the need for transportation in my daily life.