Your Ecological Footprint
Making a Difference Today for Tomorrow
What is an ecological footprint?
The morning alarm rings. You take a hot shower, brew up a cup of coffee, read a bit from the morning newspaper and hop in the car to get to work on time.
Have you ever stopped to consider the total environmental impact involved in each of these daily habits?
The ecological footprint is one technique to answer the question of how our lifestyle effects the planet.
Goals
To become more aware of the ecological effects of daily life
To calculate your ecological footprint
To identify factors which greatly effect calculating the ecological footprint
To identify changes you are willing to make to reduce your ecological footprint
Five Assumptions
Five Assumptions Behind the Ecological Footprint Calculations
1. It is possible to keep track of most of the resources people consume and much of the waste they generate.
2. Most of these resource and waste flows can be measured in terms of the biologically productive land areas required to maintain these flows. (Those resources and waste flows that cannot be measured are excluded from this assessment).
3. These different areas can be expressed in the same unit once they are scaled proportionally to their biomass productivity. In other words, each particular acre or hectare used can be converted to an equivalent area of world-average land productivity.
4. Since these areas stand for mutually exclusive uses, and each standardized hectare or acre represents the same amount of biomass productivity, they can be added up to a total – this total represents humanity’s demand.
5. This area of total human demand can be compared with nature’s supply of ecological services since it is also possible to assess the area on the planet that is biologically productive.
Source: Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel
Your Ecological Footprint
Making a Difference Today for Tomorrow
Calculate your Ecological Footprint
Ever wondered how much “nature” your lifestyle requires? You’re about to find out. This is a very basic quiz to calculate a quick and relatively accurate Ecological Footprint for an individual living in the US. The Ecological Footprint Quiz estimates how much productive land and water area you take up for the resources you consume and the waste you generate. After answering 12 easy questions you’ll be able to compare your Ecological Footprint to what other people use and to what is available on the planet.
Please answer as honestly and accurately as possible.
Caution
This quiz may surprise you, shock you, or make you think. Please remain calm…but not too calm!
Directions
Part I – Calculating Your Ecological Footprint
1. Open the Excel Spreadsheet titled “Footprint Calculator”
2. Click on the leftmost worksheet tab titled ‘Footprint Calculator’
3. Using the last two pages in this document as a guide, fill your responses into the spreadsheet
4. Read the text at the bottom of the spreadsheet and then click on the worksheet tab titled ‘Bar Charts’
5. Consider these questions:
- Am I surprised?
- What trait (foot, shelter, mobility, goods & services) is the largest?
- Am I happy about this?
- What could I do differently?
6. Print your ecological footprint from the ‘Footprint Calculator’ worksheet for reference on the next activity
Part II – Identifying factors of greatest change
1. Click on the worksheet tab titled ‘Footprint Calculator 2’ and you will see another blank Ecological Footprint Calculator
2. Fill your exact responses from your first ecological footprint calculation into this workbook
3. View the bar charts again; there should be no difference between the images
4. Adjust variables in your original response one at a time and notice the changes that occur in the ecological footprint
5. Write down the factors you notice which create the most change in the ecological footprint calculation
Part III – Changes today that will benefit tomorrow
1. Review the responses from your original ecological footprint and consider these questions:
- What changes do I think I could make to reduce my ecological footprint?
- Would these changes drastically alter my lifestyle?
2. Note some changes you think you would be willing to make
3. Adjust your responses to reflect the changes you would be willing to make using the footprint calculator in the worksheet tab ‘Footprint Calculator 2’
4. Notice how your ecological footprint has changed
5. View the bar charts again to see the effects of the changes you can make
6. Print your ecological footprint from the ‘Footprint Calculator 2’ worksheet
Part IV – Taking steps towards enhancing and protecting our environment
1. Print and complete a Footprint Commitment Card as a reminder of changes you want to make
2. Consider completing any of the following voluntary surveys to learn more about how you can improve your home and office’s resource thriftiness:
- Residential Eco-Audit
- Office Eco-Audit
- Home Energy Saver (online at http://hes.lbl.gov/)
3. To learn more about reducing your ecological footprint at home and in your community, try reading some of these titles:
- Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel
- Toward Sustainable Communities by Mark Roseland
- The Sustainability Revolution by Andres R. Edwards
- Food Not Lawns by H. C. Flores
FOOD
Q1. Animal Based Food
How often do you eat animal-based foods? (Beef, pork, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy products.)
Never (vegan) a. 0.46
Infrequently (no meat or eggs/ dairy a few time a week) b. 0.59
Occasionally (no meat or occasional meat, eggs/ dairy daily) c. 0.73
Often (meat once or twice a week) d. 0.86
Very often (meat daily) e. 1
Almost always (meat and egg/ dairy in almost all meals) f. 1.14
Q2. Locally Grown Food
How much of the food you eat is processed, packaged and not locally grown (from more than 200 miles away)?
Most of the food I eat is processed, packaged, and from far away a. 1.10
Three Quarters b. 1
Half c. 0.90
One quarter d. 0.79
Very little. Most of the food I eat is unprocessed, unpackaged
and locally grown e. 0.69
SHELTER
Q3. Shelter
How many people live in your household? (This is used to calculate your share of living space.)
1 person a. 1
2 people b. 2
3 people c. 3
4 people d. 4
5 people e. 5
6 people f. 6
7 or more people g. 7
Q4. House or apartment size
The average living space for a US household is around 1,500 square feet. What is the size of your home?
2,500 square feet or larger a. 2.9
1,900 – 2,500 square feet b. 2.2
1,500 – 1,900 square feet c. 1.7
1,000 – 1,500 square feet d. 1.2
500 – 1,000 square feet e. 0.7
500 square feet or smaller f. 0.2
Q5. Which housing type best describes your home?
Free standing house a. 1
Multi-story apartment building b. 0.8
Green-design residence c. 0.5
Q6. Do you use energy conservation and efficiency measures throughout your home?
No a. 1
Yes b. 0.75
TRANSPORTATION
Q7. Public Transportation
On average, how far do you travel on public transportation each week?
200 miles or more a. 17.29
75-200 miles b. 8.47
25-75 miles c. 3.09
1-25 miles d. 0.89
0 miles e. 0
Q8. Car
On average, how far do you go by car each week (as a driver or passenger)?
If your answer is “0-10 miles” for Q8, enter “0” in the subtotal box and skip Q9 and Q10.
400 miles or more a. 1.91
300-400 miles b. 1.43
200-300 miles c. 1
100-200 miles d. 0.55
10-100 miles e. 0.12
0-10 miles f. 0
Q9. How many miles per gallon does your car get?
If you don’t own a car, estimate the average fuel efficiency of the cars you ride in.
More than 50 miles per gallon a. 0.31
35-50 miles per gallon b. 0.46
25-35 miles per gallon c. 0.65
15-25 miles per gallon d. 0.98
Fewer than 15 miles per gallon e. 1.54
Q10. How often do you drive a car with someone else, rather than alone?
Almost never a. 1.5
Occasionally (about 25%) b. 1
Often (about 50%) c. 0.75
Very Often (about 75%) d. 0.6
Almost always e. 0.5
Q11. Air travel
Every year, Americans fly an average of 4.7 hours per person on commercial airlines. This is roughly equivalent to one round trip flight between Washington, DC and Chicago each year.
Approximately how many hours do you spend flying each year?
100 hours (approx. 1 coast-to-coast US roundtrip each month) a. 20
25 hours (approx. 2-3 coast-to-coast US roundtrips each year) b. 5
10 hours (approx. 1 coast-to-coast US round trip per year) c. 2
3 hours d. 0.6
Never fly e. 0
GOODS
Q12. Compared to people in your neighborhood, how much waste do you generate?
Much less a. 0.75
About the same b. 1
Much more c. 1.25