What is a Carbon Footprint and how does it affect you?

A Carbon Footprint is the total volume of greenhouse gases that result from regular, everyday economic and human activity. It can be calculated for individual households or larger groups. This data is used to find ways to lower the total volume of greenhouse gases emitted for these activities by engaging in sustainability strategies, with the aim of limiting the effects of Climate Change.

What is the Carbon Footprint?

In most modern societies around the world, people work, travel, and consume resources every day to live. Most of the activities that generate the most greenhouse gases and thus raise the Carbon Footprint of an individual are essential to survive. For example, commuting to their job to provide food and shelter for themselves and their families is an activity that can raise the Carbon Footprint of an individual.

This concept is usually applied to individuals, however, it can also be applied to companies and specific sets of products manufactured using greenhouse gas-emitting techniques.

How can we lower our Carbon Footprint?

People need to eat and have a safe space to live that is habitable. Another example of greenhouse gas-emitting behavior is heating one's home in the cold months of the year. Since it's unreasonable to expect people to shut off the heat and walk dozens of miles to their jobs, it's usually up to governments or other large organizations to provide alternatives to these activities that promote better sustainability and less greenhouse gas emissions.

Mass transit options are a great example of a sustainable way to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of driving individual automobiles to work each day, trains, trolleys, buses, and other modes of transportation can convey hundreds or thousands of people to their jobs each day, drastically cutting into the Carbon Footprint. And that’s just one example.