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 Calculated Footprint
When I calculated my carbon footprint, I was surprised when I saw my results. The average was about 9,730 whereas mine was about 7,000 higher than that. At first, I got an obscure number in the hundred-thousands but then I had realized I made a mistake with one of my numbers. Once fixed, my footprint was in the 16,000s. I looked at each of the category totals and noticed that my transportation was extremely high. This was the culprit of my high footprint number. Last year I had taken many trips on planes and overseas which caused the transportation number to be quite high. However, I feel that this is not very accurate because I don't travel the same every single year.
I feel the exact same way. My carbon footprint was extremely high, more than my areas, which I was surprised about because I live in an oilfield town where carbon footprints are already higher. I traveled more last year then I have in past years and I believe that played a big role.