As a part of my Sustainability Marketing class, we are committed to attempting to reduce our ecological footprint. To start, I had to take a test to see what my lifestyle's footprint is. By doing this I was definitely shocked at how what I do impacts the environment. I learned that if everyone lived the way I do, we would need 5.3 earths to sustain that lifestyle, this was a surprise to me because I am a relatively conscious person of what my actions do to the environment. So, I started thinking about my lifestyle and what would really cause my footprint to be so large. Then I realized that my mobility portion was my biggest contributor, and that is because of the large amount of flying that I do. I have a special benefit because my step-mom works for Alaska Airlines, which means that I get to fly for free on them to many different places, and I take full advantage of this perk, so much so that I have flown back and forth from Bellingham to Seattle to commute home, which can contribute to the high footprint. This would be a hard habit to break since my benefits don't last past my college graduation, so I may need to change other parts of my life to help my footprint.
To help reduce my ecological footprint I am committing to 3 goals that will reduce my impact on the environment:
- Ride the bus to school 4 out of the 5 days if not everyday, or walk if it is a nice day since I do not live far from campus.
- Replace my lunch sandwiches that consist of meat with strictly peanut butter sandwiches, this should be easy since peanut butter is one of my favorite food items. I will not but anymore lunch meat for the remainder of the quarter.
- Visit a couple local farms to purchase my fruit and vegetables, Joe's Garden is a mile away from my house so it could be an easy adjustment.
- Also, my roommates and I used to recycle a lot but we have lost our commitment to that and I would like to restart our recycling process. We have done it before, so I know we can do it again.
