What’s your Carbon Footprint

I keep hearing about carbon footprints and how we should try and minimized or offset them. Here is the definition. A carbon footprint is the total amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, emitted over the full life cycle of a product or service. It is expressed as grams of CO2 equivalents, which accounts for the different global warming effects of different greenhouse gases (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology POST, 2006).

With global warming awareness at an all time, people are pushing for carbon reduction. People and corporations are under scrutiny to reduce their carbon emissions. Going green is the new business fad. At this year’s Outdoor Retail show, the owners of the show inked a deal with the City of Salt Lake within a couple of years all the electricity to power the OR show must be sustainable.

So what can we do to minimize our footprint.

We can make our homes more energy efficient.
Use adjustable thermostats in for our AC and furnaces
Turn off and unplug all electronics when going on vacation (even standby mode uses some energy)
Close doors to unused rooms
Use energy efficient lights such compact fluorescent lightbulbs
Clean all filters to heating and cooling devices (makes the appliance work less when they get clean air)
Wash dishes manually or only using the dishwasher when its full
Walk or ride a bike instead of driving a car
Recycle as much as possible
Plant trees to shade your house and paint your interior light for warm climates and dark if you live in cold climates
Turn the refrigerator down
Buy Energystar appliances when you need to replace old ones
Slow down and drive more efficiently. When you drive fast and accelerate quickly you burn more gas
Plant more plants to help absorb CO2

There are lots of ways to reduce waste we generate. Some others include paperless statements for bills and using biofuels. However we choose to do it a little bit can go a long ways. Here at Campman we use boxes that have already been used to ship something. So if you get a box that doesn’t look right then you should know that we use 100% recycled boxes. We also pay for sustainable wind energy to power our office.

So this Labor Day drive a little less or plant a couple of trees to offset your driving.

Written by admin on August 29th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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