What is a Carbon Footprint and why is it important?
Carbon Dioxide is the by-product of emissions from our vehicles, from heating our workplaces and homes, and from other activities in our daily lives. It is also the leading greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.
The term Footprint refers to the impact we are having on the Earth. If the whole world lived like Canadians, we would need seven Earth-size planets to sustain our way of living... yes, seven.
By combining Carbon Dioxide with the term Footprint, we have a Carbon Footprint. This is the impact we are having on the world specific to the amount of Carbon Dioxide we are responsible for creating. Canadians pollute more per capita than most countries in the world, including the United States and Australia. We have a lot of work to do.
The first step to go green is to understand your carbon footprint. Whether it’s for your workplace or for you, it is important to understand how much Carbon Dioxide you are generating per year so you know what to focus on. It is very difficult to understand the impact of our reduction if we don’t measure our starting point. To use an analogy of a diet, how do you know how much weight you have lost if you don’t know how much your previous weight was?
To calculate your carbon footprint, you can use a calculator on the Internet. There are a lot of calculators available that do not work well and are focussed on selling you their carbon offset products. Zerofootprint is the best one we have found. Check out the "Sample Personal Carbon Managers" to use one. As part of the going green workshops we deliver, each participant calculates their personal detailed carbon footprint and we provide many tips about how to go green.
Once you have quantified your carbon footprint, you’re ready to start your Carbon Diet! Due to the complexity of this subject, we have divided the process of how to go green into five subject areas. They are ordered in priority order so you can tackle the most significant ones first. The first priority is Transportation.
