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 >
My Perfect Family Footprint
My ideal family footprint would consist of solar panels as my energy source instead of electricty and I would ask everyone to turn off any lights when they arent being used. Also I would ask them to take less time taking showers, for example instead of taking 30 minutes turning that into 15 minutes. Also instead of taking the car to school everyday to school and back, I could take public transportation from school to my house to increase my family footprint. Also instead of going shopping every once in a while I can trade clothes with my cousins and older sisters who don't fit there clothes anymore.
All of these ideas are great. In terms of the shower situation, families can always try to collect their shower water and use it to water their gardens or trees they have on their property. If collecting the shower water sounds a little weird, families could use grey water instead of purified water for their toilets and watering systems for the plants.
Great ideas. In my ideal family footprint, I would also mainly strive for my family to take shorter showers, as, through my own experience, my family and I usually take an exceedingly long time to finish showering. I also think that the trading clothes with family members or cousins is a great idea and that it is a very smart choice to make in an ideal family footprint.
A lot of really solid ideas. I think these would be easily applicable in any family setting. For my future family, I would also like to have solar panels because they are a much cleaner source of energy and are very cost efficient. To help further energy efficiency in my house, I will also have timed lights that go off after a certain amount of time and make sure that everyone in my house is conscious of how much water they use daily. I really like the idea of using plants in different ways around the home to help the environment, but I hate gardens and probably wouldn't eat anything I would grow. Instead of a traditional garden, I will have fruit trees which absorb CO2, support pollinators, and provide shade and food. Trees are overall great for both our ecosystem and environment. https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Home-Energy-Efficient