Ecological footprint quiz
The Redefining Progress environmental footprint calculator has been updated: it now takes into account more recent information about local averages and new options like hybrid cars and water-saving devices. You might like to give it a whirl to see what it’s like.
Footprint calculators are a way to get a rough idea of how you’re doing with your environmental impact. They estimate the area of land and ocean needed to provide your food, goods, services, housing, and energy as well as absorbing your wastes. They’re not perfect by a long shot, but they can help people understand the consequences of their choices. The Redefining Progress one can also compare your impact to the averages for your own country (you can read more about how RP calculates their figures here: FAQ).
My footprint is much smaller than the Aussie average in greenhouse gas emissions, and a bit smaller than average for food, goods and services, and housing. Even so, if everyone lived the way I do, we’d still need more than 2 planets to provide for us all. Luckily, I’m not done yet with improving my house and food, and I’m finding more and more eco-friendly shops for when I do need to replace things.
Tags: eco-footprint
May 1st, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I took the challenge and did the calculator and for my families footprint we would need 2.75 earths. I have no idea why it came out so hight seeing that my carbon footprint was nearly zero. I better do it again. I must have missed something?
Gavin
May 1st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
There should be a summary at the end to show which areas you lucked out in - for me it was food! I also found that their estimate of the size of a three-bedroom house was much larger than our actual 3-bedroom house, so I switched to an answer for square metres rather than number of rooms.