Find out how much carbon is required to support your lifestyle, and explore different ways to reduce your own carbon footprint.
In the book, many of our everyday climate heroes talk about how they have adjusted their own lifestyle to be more climate-positive. This includes taking small steps to change their behaviour and curb the waste of energy, water and other precious resources. We can all do the same, regardless of whether we already work in a renewable energy field or simply believe it is the right thing to do.
This takes self-reflection about your own lifestyle: How much electricity do you need at school and at home? How much heat do you need to keep your home warm and cook food? How do you get from Point A to Point B, and are any fossil fuels required for your transport? These are all tough questions, and it’s important to note that there is no single fix to make our lives a little bit greener. We need many of these things to study, work and live securely and comfortably. But it helps to know about the carbon, water and land footprint attached to human activity too.
Once you have a bit of understanding about your own footprint, then it’s time to think about whether you should or can reduce it. Please talk to your parents before making any changes too – they may be able to support you in meeting these goals and commitments, and maybe even join the journey too.
Further resources:
- GoKid provides a simple guide to all the different contributors to a carbon footprint, from diet to energy.
- Giki Zero offers a free way to assess and understand your own footprint, and then decide how you can reduce it depending on your own lifestyle and available budget (note that while free, this requires sign-up and should be shared with parents first).
- WWF provides a questionnaire to calculate your environmental footprint.
- Count Us In is a global community of people and organisations taking practical actions to combat climate change, from eating seasonally to walking more.
- Count Us In also provides a helpful breakdown of steps to green your lifestyle, measured by both impact and level of effort required.
- Ørsted provides some simple suggestions on how to go beyond choosing green energy, to greening other aspects of your life.
- The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions provides a more advanced guide to how to limit climate change and build resilience to climate impacts.
- Connect4Climate provides all sorts of ideas and links to create original climate action content at home and connect with other young people around the world.
