Life Cycle Analysis – What’s Your Carbon Footprint?

We have an amazing standard of living in the United States.  The way we live is largely driven by our capitalistic economy.  Even now, in the midst of a financial crisis, we are an incredibly rich country.  I try to live a frugal lifestyle, but I still struggle with the pursuit of goods from time to time.  I’m a product of a consumption driven culture.  All that consumption produces a lot of waste.  My brother-in-law is an engineer that’s very passionate about keeping his energy consumption down.  I don’t have his knowledge or dedication to making the world a better place, but some of his fervor has rubbed off on me (to a much lesser degree).  I have the desire to be a good citizen.  I want to be a part of a clean, sustainable world.  The fact of the matter is, living a greener lifestyle can also save you money.  I feel like the type of habits you form living a frugal lifestyle reduce what you spend, but they don’t make your life worse in any way.  You just change.  Living greener is no different.  Changing the way you live can make you feel better.  I’m not preaching from a high horse here – there are a lot of things I need to do better, too.  I’ll try if you’ll try. 

There are lots of ways to reduce your carbon footprint.  Some of them can save you money.  Some of them actually cost more money to implement.  When I decided to make this a post, I asked my brother-in-law to compile some resources that would help determine the cost savings of reducing your carbon footprint.  This is difficult to pin down.  It’s hard to accurately estimate all the costs involved in what you eat, where you live, how much you use, etc.  For instance, when you have a beer and don’t recycle the bottle, where do you stop with the costs?  Do you consider the cost of the bottle?  The reproduction cost of not recycling?  The energy cost of shipping?  The monetary cost of shipping?  The energy cost of bottling?  You get the point.  Your carbon footprint is an intricate matter.  Anyway, access one of the calculators he sent me here.

As you take the test, lots of tips are littered along the way.  I encourage you to take the time to read them.  Here’s a sampling of the tips - on why we should recycle:

Recycling our wastes has enormous environmental and economic benefits in the form of reduced landfill space, fewer demands for raw materials, less energy consumption, less air and water pollution, lower waste-disposal bills, and cheaper goods. Recycling one metric ton of paper saves 17 trees. It takes 40 – 95% less energy to produce goods with recycled aluminum, glass, plastic, or paper than it does to manufacture them with raw materials. Communities throughout the world are striving for zero-waste economies where the outputs from each resource use are turned into inputs for another use. Zero waste does not aim to simply manage waste, but eliminate its creation in the first place.

Saving 17 trees may not sound like much for a metric ton of paper, but cutting down trees uses a tremendous amount of energy when you think of it.  You have to transport heavy equipment to where the trees are, use energy to cut them down, then use more energy to transport them to where they need to go.  The heavier something is, the higher the energy cost to transport it.  Think about that.  Just keeping your golf clubs (insert heavy item here)  in your trunk will have a significant adverse affect on the energy it costs to drive your car. 

On making things last:

The faster we buy new items, the faster we deplete resources and the more likely it is that we are exceeding the Earth’s regenerative capacity. Unfortunately, today’s economy is designed to convince us to buy often and replace items that are in perfectly good working order. Planned obsolescence – the deliberate manufacturing of products to wear out quickly – adds to the problem. To counter this, we can try to repair things as much as possible and only buy products that are designed to last.

This is one thing that I think I’m pretty good at.  I don’t like to buy new things, almost to a fault.  I did buy a new car this year, a five year old Camry, but it wasn’t easy for me to do.  I try to get the maximum use out of anything I buy as a rule. 

On using green products:

Products used to clean floors, carpets, bathrooms, and other building elements often contain harmful chemicals that can have serious human health effects and contaminate water supplies, fish, and wildlife if they are poured down drains, circulated through ventilation systems, or disposed of outdoors. Environmental damage can also occur during the development, manufacture, and transport of these products. Fortunately, biodegradable and non-toxic alternatives can significantly reduce or eliminate these impacts altogether while providing the same level of cleanliness.

These alternatives can be had without increasing your costs that much.  This is something my wife and I have talked about and are trying to improve upon. 

On greener buildings:

Green buildings significantly reduce demands for energy, water, and materials through ecologically sensitive siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal practices – the complete building life cycle. Passive solar heating, water efficient fixtures, recycled materials and other green design features can generate up to 30% in energy savings, reduce carbon emissions by 35%, reduce water use by 30 to 50% and save 50 to 90% in waste disposal costs.

Right now we own a small condo, and we really don’t use that much energy based on where we live.  When we do have a house, we’re going to go all out to make it as green as possible.  Things like solar panels have gotten a lot cheaper over the last few years.  Hopefully, the cost will be even lower when we’re ready to make improvements to our next dwelling.

One last one, on water conservation:

Fresh water consumed in households requires energy for both delivery and treatment. Household water use also takes water from other beneficial uses such as irrigation or in-stream flow for fish and wildlife. All of these impacts increase a household’s ecological footprint, so saving water is a key strategy for footprint reduction. It has been estimated that by installing water saving features and adopting water conservation habits such as those listed here, households can easily reduce their water footprint by 60% or more.

Most of these things will save you money, as well as the planet.  Obviously, using less water leads to lower water bills.  A house with better insulation and solar panels saves on energy costs and consumption.  On the other hand, shopping at organic food stores can be expensive.  Of course, putting fewer chemicals in your body isn’t just better for the environment, it’s better for your health as well. 

For the record, I didn’t do all that well on my ecological footprint quiz.  If everyone on the planet lived the way I do, we would need about 3 planet earths.  That sounds terrible, but I really do try to live pretty green.  I was at less than half of the national average in three of the four areas.  I did really poorly in the food category – it’s something I need to work on.  I eat a lot of meat, which has higher energy costs than vegetables.  I don’t eat enough locally grown foods, either.  In any case, I hope seeing your carbon footprint inspires you to try to improve wherever you can – and I hope in the process, you save money as well.  Thanks for reading. 

This post was inspired by my brother-in-law, R.J. - Thanks buddy. 

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