The 41st Earth Day is tomorrow, on April 22. Founded in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson, it was created to draw awareness to our planet and is currently celebrated by 175 countries. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day.
Most of us have a good understanding of the myriad green efforts in the flooring industry—from CARE to the NWFA’s Responsible Procurement Program and all categories in between. For a complete update on what the industry is doing to protect the environment, check out our Green Guide where we have chronicled the sustainability efforts of almost every type of flooring.
But for Earth Day, I took a look at what I was doing personally to help (or hurt) the environment with a carbon footprint test. My last test in 2004 looked at various lifestyle factors like transportation, living accommodations and diet to determine that if everyone lived like me, the world’s population would require a little less than three planets to function.
Today, sad to say, I did not fare as well. I recycle almost everything I can, even taking my plastic bottles home with me from work so they can be recycled. I take public transportation whenever possible, about five days a week, and I seek out local, organic food. However, my travel habits were the real killer:
Because almost all of my travel in cars and planes is for work, there wasn’t much I could do there but I still felt guilty about my 6.4 planet rating. So, I went on to “explore scenarios” and see what I could do otherwise to change my footprint.
It turns out that by eating less meat, eggs and dairy, I can reduce my footprint by almost half a planet. Although I’ll miss it, I already know how to do this: I have to cut out my weekly burger with goat cheese.
Please take the quiz and feel free to share the results!
-Emily