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Five eco-footprint quizzes will help you find out. If everyone lived like you do, just how many planets would we need to live?
So, you think you're doing everything you can to help the environment, but how are your lifestyle choices really adding up? Several eco-footprint calculators are available to test just how well you're doing. But which to choose?
In general all of these calculators measure the same thing: The amount of land and ocean required to support your lifestyle - the consumer goods you buy, the food you eat, the energy needed to power your home and transport. Most are expressed in global acres or global hectares and compare this against the total biological capacity of the planet. The question you're answering is: If everyone consumed resources like you do, how many Earths would be required to support that level of resource consumption?
If you're playing around with these and get different results don't worry. They all measure things slightly differently. The principle of trying to reduce your environmental impact as far as possible remains the same, even if because of computational differences the numbers come out slightly differently.
What follows is a rundown of some of the more popular ones, the differences in what they measure, and how they tabulate the results--using me as an example. Let’s go:
Redefining Progress
This one pretty much sets the standard by which other footprint calculators are measured. It works for anywhere in the world and asks much more detailed questions than most of the other ones out there. All aspects of your life are delved into: how many miles per year do you take the bus; do you grow your own vegetables; do you buy more second-hand furniture than new; what sorts of household cleaners do you use; what sorts of energy saving features are in your home.
According to this one, my lifestyle (small apartment in a brick building in an urban area, powered by renewable energy, walking or taking public transit most of the time, eating a vegetarian diet, a limited amount of air travel and consumer goods purchases) still requires 2.23 earths - not sustainable if every person lived like me, but compared to the US average of 6.35, I'm doing pretty well.
Even if I pick the most environmentally friendly option in each category, I still can't get below one planet. This is probably because of the constraints of our civic infrastructure and the structure of the economy, not to mention the size of the global population. We're all in this together and every year there are more and more of us.
Global Footprint Network
The Global Footprint Network provides one of the most well-animated eco-footprint calculators out there. Unlike the other footprint quizzes out there this one lets you pick and customize an avatar for your journey through assessing the environmental impact of your life. Not quite sure whether this really improves the calculator or the results, but I can give myself a snazzier haircut and beard than I have in real life. This one goes into similar detail as the Redefining Progress calculator but doesn't include an option to say that you’ve bought carbon offsets for your energy usage or travel—but it remains pretty darn detailed.
With this one, if my standard of living was extended to all the people of the planet we would need 3.5 of them to support us all.
Note that this one only has settings for the United States or Australia.
WWF-UK
Live in the UK? WWF has an eco-footprint calculator just for you. It measures the standard things: type of housing, diet, travel and consumer habits. It too doesn't offer an option to indicate that you've purchased offsets for your energy usage, but does ask if you own pets and figures this in to your footprint. Not that those probably balance each other out though...
Pretending I live in the UK, the WWF says that my lifestyle and resource consumption habits would required 2.6 earths if everyone lived like me. Again not bad considering the averages, but I probably can do better.
Low Impact Living
This one's sort of different than other eco-footprint quizzes out there in that rather than giving you your score in 'number of planets needed' if gives you a 'LILI' (low living index) score. The idea is the lower the better.
The questions you answer are the same as the other ones, but at the end you get this LILI score and a check list of suggested projects you can do around the home to lower the score. For example: Installing low flow shower-heads knocks 2.8 points off your score; buying green power for 100% of your electricity reduces it by 1 point; buying offsets for your remaining carbon footprint brings your index down by 4.4 points. You get the idea.
While the others may give you suggestions for ways to reduce your eco-footprint, the Low Impact Living quiz gives you a list of actionable steps you can take and see the results immediately. Pretty cool.
For those keeping score: I've got a LILI of 23 ('now that's living light on the planet!').
National Geographic Greendex
I'm including this one mostly because it's the oddball of the bunch. Why is it odd? Well it's the only one in which a higher score is better and the only one which asks you questions about your attitude towards environmental and economic issues. Ultimately you answer the same sorts of questions; it's just that this quiz isn't as action-oriented as some of the others. Play around with it though. The results are interesting, mostly because you can compare how your Greendex compares to the averages for different countries around the world.
For example, my Greendex score is 65. This compares to a US average of 44.9 (which is the worst score of the countries surveyed) and is better than the average score of 60 in Brazil & India (the best-scoring nations).
There you go: That's the skinny on some of the better eco-footprint calculators out there, but how can you really use them?
The easy answer is simply to make yourself aware of how your lifestyle impacts the planet, and how many natural resources would be required if everyone lived like you did. It can be a real eye opener. For most of us in the developed world (myself included) the quick answer is that our average lifestyle simply can't be shared by everyone without seriously damaging environmental consequences. We all have to take personal action.
That's where the more detailed answer and the tinkering come in: Take your time and play around with them, adjust your answers to see how you can favorably adjust you score—what does reducing meat in your diet do; what does walking, bicycling or taking public transit do; using a hybrid car; flying more or less; buying fewer consumer goods?
You can quickly see how many of the things we talk about here on Planet Green directly effect how heavily (or hopefully, lightly) you tread upon the one planet we have.
Eco-Footprint
Brazil and India Top Greendex; USA, Canada and France Finish Last
Your Ecological Footprint: Defining, Calculating and Reducing Your Environmental Footprint
The Perfect Eco Footprint: Home Recycling Sharing
How Green Can You Go?
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