‘Climate Change’, ‘Global Warming’, ‘Sustainable Development’, ‘Carbon Credits’ have become buzzwords not only for progressive, concerned individuals, hippies and environmentalists but also for entrepreneurs, large corporations and serious business people all over the world. You cannot pick up a newspaper or magazine or turn on the TV today without encountering something related to these topics. So much so that they are beginning to enter the mindsets of people who would not normally consider themselves “eco-conscious”.
In this country we pride ourselves on the fact that recycling is ‘inherently Indian’, a notion that is reinforced by the presence of the neighbourhood ‘raddiwala’ or scrap dealer who collects and stores everything from old magazines and newspapers to radios, keyboards, and light bulbs. We also tend to be quite particular about turning off unused lights and fans and making sure the tap is completely turned off so no water is wasted. It is debatable whether we do this out of our environmental consciousness or because it will actually save us some money in the long-run. To some extent frugality also defines our ‘Indianness’. These are no doubt important habits but they can best be described as ‘baby steps’ in the realm of sustainability and are most certainly not enough. Very few people actually go beyond these initial ‘baby steps’ and end up making this consciousness a part of their daily lives.
If you truly wish to improve the quality of life around you and make your surroundings safer and cleaner then it is important to ask “What is my individual impact on the earth and its finite resources?” There are several resources available online that calculate your ‘ecological footprint’ or ‘carbon footprint’ based on the responses you provide. Your ecological footprint is basically a calculation of how much of the earth’s resources it takes to support your lifestyle. I encourage you to visit http://www.myfootprint.org/en/ and find out your own footprint. It is an interesting exercise and the results will definitely surprise you. My own results are below.
I like to think of myself as an environmentally conscious individual and was disappointed to know that if everyone in the world lived like me, we would need 1.02 Earths which implies that my current lifestyle is not sustainable. My footprint in global hectares is 16.08 hectares which is well above the country average of 6.7 hectares. This is due to 3 major factors:
1) I drive a car often,
2) I travel in airplanes several times a year
3) I am non-vegetarian.
These are the three main reasons why I’m living unsustainably and by simply making changes in one or more of these areas I could definitely reduce my footprint. Being vegetarian for example would lower my footprint dramatically.
According to a study by Redefining Progress (the creators of this particular ecological footprint quiz), “humanity is exceeding its ecological limits by 39%. Or, put another way, we would need to have over one third more than the present biocapacity of Earth to maintain the same level of prosperity for future generations.”
Another online resource enables you to quickly calculate your carbon footprint and compare it with the average for your country. It only takes a minute to calculate so check it out at http://oneminute.zerofootprint.net/. Below is an illustration of my own carbon footprint which shows that I annually contribute approximately 13.81 tonnes of CO2 (the average Indian’s is less than 2 tonnes of CO2 per year). Like the Ecological Footprint Quiz this high number is a reflection of my travel and commuting methods as well as my eating habits.
Find out what your impact on the earth is today and you can begin to identify areas in which you can improve your footprint. Both websites provide suggestions and tips to help you to achieve this.
This is really interesting.
The impact will be really felt when we not only calculate the footprint, but try and reduce it in planned manner.
Every idividual owes it to mother earth.
It's an interesting link - that zerofootprint! My score was 2.11, placing my damage above the average damage caused by an Indian. They also offered for me to offest it by paying Canadian $33.76, so all my sins will be redeemed at a click of the mouse:-)
The pessimists (or realists) among us would have us believe that humanity is not ready to accept that the only way to reduce your ecological footprint - or reduce greenhouse gases, or whatever else we want to call it - is to reduce the total activity that the humanity undertakes. That collectively we need to consume less. That some will have to increase their consumption (so they get a life worth living) and others decrease it. However, this has vast implications, including the fact that it will mean that the world's industrial output will probably have to reduce (drastically) and redistribute. This will probably also mean we will have to move away from the high-consumption mantra that everyone is promoting, operating on a no-growth principle (and how many are going to accept that as a premise to be debated?).
Of course, those who are eternally positive would always want to maintain that it is possible to lead a continually better (a.k.a. high-consumption) life for ever increasing number of people all over the earth as humanity is capable of developing suitable technologies!
The answer is, probably as always, somewhere in the middle;-)
Thanks for that interesting link.
Vijay Tase
vijayt@peertechnical.net
Thanks Ankur and Vijay for your comments and feedback. While large corporations and organizations are doing their bit to reduce their impacts, it is important for individuals to be able to do the same. This blogpost intends to encourage people to calculate their impact and help them to identify suitable and practical solutions to reduce their ecological footprint.
Although it would certainly help to contribute funds towards organizations that help to offset carbon emissions and ecological impacts (as Vijay rightly pointed out) I highly recommend that if an individual is actually able to make reductions in their footprint through small and effective changes in their lifestyle it would go a long way as well as give them a sense of satisfaction from personally contributing towards environmental protection.
Please feel free to contact me for more information and other useful links on this topic.
Thats a very nice article. I took my EF 3-4 months back and i took it now. But i am not sure of one thing though my answers are almost same. The foot print differs. It was about 2.54(updated today) but this site you reffered to is says my EF is .34! Well thats a huge difference Site i took my EF from http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/ Well.. you cant really rely on one ecological foot print. Because for instance the site you suggested had a better relevance because its calculated region vise. But at the same time gadgets that we use are not used. And the opposite applies to the link i suggested!! But any way.. if this is going to make a difference......y argue!?
I'd like to echo Chris S's comments in the Footprint site here.. This test is really meant for people living in US. There r several aspects which is difficult to calculate living in a typical middle class Indian home...
1. a garden - yes or no? many homes grow in kitchen pots or buy from local farms/ neighbourhood trees/ plants several vegetables. so what can one classify this as?
2. rainwater harvesting is now mandatory while construction of a building.. most of the apartments do adopt rwh. but water saving fixtures? and washin the deck/driveway? and toilet fixtures, sink heaters, dryin clothes indoors or in a dryer? aren't these too 'western'?
3. natural foods stores vs supermarkets vs organic food? how can one classify the friendly neighbourhood store who has a vegetable vendor in the front, stocks some 'brands' of organically grown pulses and is a mixture of everything?
4. recycling... i think in most indian households, paper, plastic bags, cloth and many more items are recyled regularly till they really cannot b further used (like a bedsheet becoming a really dirty small piece of cloth!) Sorting garbage should be the question... how many of us sort garbage into green, black and red (or color codes for resp cities essentially to sort organic wastes, recyclable and non-recyclable)?
5. energy-efficient appliances? all appliance stores here tell u how extremely energy efficient their brand of appliance is... so much for that! and... is buying a second-hand appliance better thinkin of the packaging and resources that go into a new one or is the second-hand appliance going to guzzle energy? these are the questions that need to b addressed in India.
.... oh, so many more are there. i jus wonder if there r any 'footprint' sites which are india-specific.