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 >
ways we can (try to) reduce footprint in the household
Overall reduction of footprint in a household requires a group effort. Your personal footprint may not be the highest, however, it is good to encourage those around us to try to be conscious about their own footprints as well. First and foremost, we should determine what activities beget the increase of footprint in the house. The next step is to convince household members to expend less of a certain resource or cut down the performance of a certain activity/consumption of certain products. For example, I have noticed that my family leaves the lights on for longer than necessary. I make sure to be conscious about how long I leave the light on inside the house and I asked my family to try to utilize natural sunlight as much as possible to conserve more energy. It may be difficult to urge those within your home to reduce their footprint although it is worth the try to educate them about what their carbon and water footprint does to impact the environment.