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 >
Current and Future Family Footprint
In my current house I always try and turn off the lights when leaving a room, take showers as short as possible. However, some of the bigger things are not usually up to me. like the dish washer, and washing machine are typically run by my parents. If it were my own house, I would make sure to buy appliances that are energy efficient. I would install solar panels, and implement a grey water system for the toilets. Carpool to and from work/school, have a hybrid or electric car. My neighbors have an electric car and they love it, and say there is no difference in that or a normal car, and it helps the environment a huge amount. Currently I do not have a lot of control over what happens with my families carbon footprint, but when I am the one controlling it I will do everything in my power to reduce it to as little as possible.
Ways to to reduce your carbon footprint don't just include your house appliances and transportation, but also your diet. So by eating less meat, cheese, and eggs would also help lessen or control your family footprint. You could also try buying products that are locally grown, since ones that aren't take more resources and impact your carbon footprint more. All in all, I think it's great that you're already coming up with ways to decrease your family's carbon footprint in the future!
https://carbonfund.org/reduce/
http://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html
The two links above are useful sources for tips on reducing your carbon footprint.