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 >
"Walking On Sunshine!"
To start off, my house would have a lot of windows. I love using natural light to brighten up dark corners and rooms. I use natural light in the morning to get ready, read, or even daydream. Natural light is not that expensive, it's actually free. Natural light, compared to artificial light, is better for your health. Do you ever wonder why there are so many windows in schools and office buildings? Here is one of the reasons: According to the article, https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2 … ts-health, natural light has shown better performance, sleep duration, and mood in employees. Not only that, it also saves 11% of household energy consumption. I've only installed windows in my house and my carbon footprint has already decreased! Simply placing something that will allow some daylight to enter your home can help reduce your carbon footprint. I guess I could say that I'm walking on sunshine, but I know I won't leave any footprints. To see other sources of information regarding the health and environmental benefits of using natural l ight rather than artificial light, refer to these articles: http://www.archlighting.com/technology/ … al-light_o and http://www.fitbrains.com/blog/natural-l … nd-health/
This is only one of the dozens of changes I would include in my virtual house. Light bulbs and electricity contributed most to my calculated carbon footprint. I think including more daylight can affect and reduce my carbon footprint drastically.