7 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

I just went to the Down 2 Earth Expo where I attended a lecture by Dan Ruben, the executive director of Boston Green Tourism. He is on a mission to reduce his carbon footprint by 80% – he has already reached 60% without compromising his lifestyle.

He discussed a whole host of ways to curb your carbon foot print, some easier than others. I put together a ‘to do list’ based on his lecture, a few small steps towards my own carbon neutrality Maybe you’ll find something on my ‘to do list’ that you can check off too (I just checked off two!):

Quantify it, first off the key to reducing your carbon footprint is quantifying it; “what gets measured gets done.” So, get a sense of how many kilowatt hours, how many gallons of gas, how many gallons of water, etc you use and a month and the dollar amount per unit. So, when you cut out, say, 10 gallons of gas a week, you are saving about $10 a month cutting your carbon footprint at the same time.For example, I recently learned that a plasma TV, left in standby mode otherwise known as ‘off,’ consumes 1452.4 kilowatt hours. That stat alone doesn’t mean much to me, but when you tell me that 1452.4 kilowatt hours is the equivalent of $159.76 a year, now that is something I can understand! So, if instead of just shutting off my TV when I go to bed or work, if I actually on plugged it, I could see a huge energy savings. Now think of households that have 2 or 3 flat screen tv’s and the savings really adds up. To find out the cost of other standby appliances check out this chart by Good Magazine. And if you really want to measure your energy usage, think about investing in a TED Home Energy Monitor (www.theenergydetective.com/store) that displays your current energy usage.

Insulate your electrical outlets – it never occurred to me that heat could be lost through the outlets in your walls. Now all of my outlets are insulated with foam outlet insulators. I got them 5 for $1 at the show, but you can find them at any home improvement store.

Remove your air conditioning window units in the winter months, otherwise it is the equivalent of leaving window open all winter long. I know it is a complete pain to lug that beast out of the window, but it really makes no sense to leave them in year round. (okay, this one is not on my list, I don’t have an air conditioner, but I cannot tell you how many of these I see hanging out of windows in the northeast just blowing energy and dollars out the window)

Turn your water heater down to 120 degrees If you can turn you water on and it scalds you, then water is too high!!!!! And better yet, when you go on vacation, set your water heater to vacation mode and save ever more.

Get a free energy audit from your utility company, or better yet get a professional audit for a more complete diagnosis (runs $300-600) using a blower door test and infrared technology. They often seal some your leaks as part of the audit, typically, saving you 10% on energy costs on the spot and potentially much more down the road.

Test your toilet for leaks an easy way to test for leaks, drop a few drops of food dye into your tank, if the dye leaks into the bowl, then you have got a leak and should reseal your toilet. No leaks here!

Put a lid on it and only heat what you need, often times people heat up way more water than necessary to boil pasta and they boil the water without the lid on it. Heating up water in the smallest pot possible, with the least amount of water and with a lid will cut down on energy use.These are just a few examples of really easy ways to reduce your carbon footprint and save money.