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Consumer Environmental Resources

Industries and institutions are responsible for most of humanity's damage to the global environment. Yet individuals, families and households can make a difference by changing to less destructive consumption patterns and creating demand for more ecologically sound consumer choices. Consumer eco-power works most effectively when directed at such key areas as transportation, home energy use, food and water.

  1. Ecological Footprint

    • To become a more ecologically sound consumer, first calculate your ecological footprint. This measures the amount of biologically productive water and land necessary to sustain your lifestyle. You can quickly and easily calculate your footprint on the website of the Global Footprint Network. The Network's calculator recommends specific strategies for reducing your ecological impact.

    Transportation

    • The Green Living section of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website covers better gasoline economy and efficiency, greener vehicle options and bicycling. Mother Earth News delves further into these topics. Public Transportation Takes Us There enables you to evaluate your own transportation use, find mass transit in your community and advocate for needed transit improvements. To get the most out of walking, join the informative online community at The Walking Site.

    Home Energy

    • The EPA's Green Living pages offer a number of guides to making your home more energy efficient, for example by installing compact fluorescent light bulbs, purchasing ENERGY STAR appliances, and applying the principle of "reduce, reuse, recycle" to all goods you buy and consume. These pages also contain some information on clean, renewable sources of home energy.

    Food

    • The Vegetarian Resource Group offers practical tips on minimizing or eliminating your animal flesh consumption. The Sustainable Table educates about eating more locally, sustainably and humanely produced foods. With Ecology Action's "Grow Biointensive" gardening method, you can grow high yields of organic vegetables, fruits and grains yourself. Urban dwellers can learn food growing ideas from the United Nations-sponsored Growing Greener Cities Programme and the American Community Gardening Association.

    Water

    • According to National Geographic, the average American's lifestyle requires 2000 gallons of water daily, only five per cent of which is witnessed coming out of a tap or flowing through a toilet. The rest "is hidden in the food you eat, energy you use, products you buy, and services you rely on." Fortunately, National Geographic recommends ways to conserve water in both its obvious and not-so-obvious uses.

    Carbon Offsets

    • Alongside reducing your ecological footprint through other means, consider carbon offsets. These donations to green energy projects compensate for your unavoidable carbon emissions, for example, from jet travel. Carefully evaluate any carbon offset seller for tangible results. Native Energy, one of the best-reviewed offset sellers, funds projects like wind turbines on Native American reservations.

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