How Can You Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: Practical Steps for a Sustainable Lifestyle

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How do you lower your carbon footprint? That's probably one of the questions that a

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lot of people have, but don't really look at. There's a

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lot of calculators out there. Some works well, some don't, but

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we always try and figure out like where our measurement is from an

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estimation point of view. And then how can we actually lower our

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carbon footprint? Right? Because once you know where you're at, you

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can find ways to actually lower it through food purchases

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or clothing purchases or travel or lack of travel

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and so forth. And maybe the things you drive or your heating bill

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or the way you heat your home or cool your home. There's a

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lot of different ways, but sometimes it helps to have a bit of that guide.

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So today, what we're going to be going over is finding ways

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to lower your carbon footprint. Forbes

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put out a great article on how to reduce your carbon footprint. And

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we're going to talk about some of the things that have been added to there. That's on this

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episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

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your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,

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how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by

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taking action. And the first action you're taking is by

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tuning into this episode and this podcast, and whether

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you're on the YouTube channel or you're on our website speakupforblue.com or

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you get information to your inbox from our site if

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you go to speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter and

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sign up through your email for free and I protect your email I don't sell it

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and you get you know Ocean News all our latest podcasts all our latest videos

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you get access to three news articles every day Monday to

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Friday and of course, three different types of

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job advertisements if you want to dedicate more time to the

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ocean. But on today's episode, we're going to be talking something differently. I haven't done

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this in a little bit. We're going to be talking about lowering your carbon

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footprint. And this is something that I always find interesting because

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over the last number of years, Well, previously,

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like 10, 20 years ago, there was a big focus on lowering

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your carbon footprint. Each individual should lower the carbon footprint. Then

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it kind of got out and being like, why do we put the onus just on

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individual people? The governments should be helping us

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lower the footprint by putting the regulations in terms of fossil

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fuel cap and usage. oil and gas development, which all is

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encompassed coal and things like that, and going more toward renewable energy, that

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would have a bigger impact from a national and international level.

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So international deals were created, some

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were destroyed, and some were created again, and we've started to see that

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evolution. We started to see more and more countries work towards that, but

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it really depends on which party of that country is

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in power for that government. For instance, the Trump administration that

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just won their election last week, Is going to be coming in

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in January and they are going to be taking apart a lot of the climate

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change policies So they've said that has been put up by

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the previous administration the Biden administration and so

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and we're gonna see a lot more development of oil and gas and fossil fuels

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than we saw previously to this this administration that the u.s. Has now

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and the same thing in Canada, you know, the liberal government's in power right now They're trying

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to do as much as they can and That

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could be more of taking away policies like the

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carbon tax, taking away other policies for climate change, and reducing

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climate change, and putting in more policies to develop the tar sands,

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which is very dirty gas that is

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made from Canada. And we're going to see a lot more

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on just degrading the environment. That's just, for some reason, that's

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the Conservative Party at this point, in my opinion, and from historical

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records. Regardless, people have to deal with

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the governments that have been elected in a democracy, right? Whether we

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agree with the government's policies or not, they're put

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in place because people wanted them, the majority of people wanted them in

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place. And so now it's time to really start

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focusing on your individual footprint and how

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you can reduce that over time. don't help

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in the overall schemes, but it can help you feel better about yourself to

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say, hey, you know what? I'm actually thinking more sustainably. I'm

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thinking more about the planet and that's making me feel better

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from a mental health perspective because I know it helps me. So

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the first thing to do is to figure out what your carbon footprint

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is today. Don't judge yourself too much. Try to figure it

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out. There's a great tool for the Nature Conservancy I'll

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link to it in the article, I'll link to the article that has it in there. I've

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tried to use it, you know, just full disclosure, I'm having trouble

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getting past the first part. I don't know if it's just because I'm

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coming in from Canada and maybe it didn't like, it looked like it

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liked my address but it didn't really. So I'd love to

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hear if you have any trouble with it or you have success with it. Please

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let me know, hit me up on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean or

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on YouTube or comment below on the YouTube video for this episode

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or comment in Spotify. But I'd love to hear here

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So that's the first thing, get what you have and

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understand where you are in your carbon footprint. The other

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thing to look at, according to this Forbes article that talked to sustainability leaders,

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they talked about buying vegetables instead of

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beef. So when it comes to making more eco-friendly choices, shopping choices, experts

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generally advise buying local or artisanal products rather

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than mass-produced food and fast fashion. So the first thing, let's talk

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about the food. Local farm food is usually

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pretty good you try it want to try and stay away from any imported food

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if you can try and stay away from any Mass-produced

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like beef or things like that try and go to local farmers to get the beef if

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you can I know groceries are expensive. So

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I'm not expecting everybody to go bankrupt over doing it. Sometimes I

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can't buy the perfect type of meat

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or vegetable because it's just too expensive, trying to

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find where it is, or it becomes almost impossible to get on a regular basis.

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So do what you can in doing

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that research. Talk to local farmers. Talk to maybe some farmers markets and

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find out where you can get. The best is to start up for your local farmers

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market. and see where that goes. But livestock are

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a major source of methane emissions and a

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powerful greenhouse gas, many times more potent than carbon dioxide.

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So shifts from meat to more plant-based proteins in

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your diet could reduce foods by a food footprint

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by 50 to 80% that are far greater effective in

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simply choosing locally sourced beef. If

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you can go more towards that vegetable-based diet, it's

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also better for you in a lot of ways. You can still have some protein, some

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meat, some seafood, and so forth. Just be careful where you get it from. And

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I think that's really important. But locally raised beef are more sustainable choices

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than factory farmed, of course. Same with chicken. With

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your fish, obviously wild is probably better, but

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even some aquacultured sources can be good, but

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do your research in trying to find that. Then the

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other one was talking about fast fashion versus, you know, sort of

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wear wool. So wear wool instead of fast fashion with synthetic fibers. So

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stay away from clothes with synthetics of fibers, which is very difficult because most

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clothes are synthetic fibers and most fashion is

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fast fashion. You know, I am a father of

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two girls. Shopping is happening

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in this household and a lot of the times it's frustrating because the

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items they buy, you can tell it from fast fashion, they're very,

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very cheap, which makes it really nice as a family for in

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today's economy to be able to buy clothes for my

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kids, to be able to to be able to wear

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something that they like, but it's also, is it the best for

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the environment? Can we lower our footprint just with where these clothes

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are coming from? Is it better to buy less that

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it's more expensive but it'll last longer? Staying away

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from synthetic fibers is great. Staying away from fast

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fashion brands, which is awesome. There's a recent article that

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was shown Zara's, a

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fast fashion company, has been using upsell of

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reused denim, but it's actually new denim. And so they're trying

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to use that upcycle and it's greenwashed, but

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not in a good, like it's just greenwashing, which your company does not wanna be associated with.

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Nobody wants to be associated with that. So you have to be careful when you start to

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see these words like upcycled or recycled. Are they actually recycled?

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Are they actually upcycled? The best thing to do that

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is cheaper, I always tell my kids too, if they want to buy their clothes, go

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to a thrift shop and buy thrift clothes because at least it's better

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to reuse those clothes than it is to buy new ones in fast fashion.

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You can get them for just as cheap, maybe cheaper than the fast fashion brands.

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So that's always good. And the third way is to invest in sustainable

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business practices. So in this one, it's actually

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really interesting. So the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

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Compass offers a practical guide for entrepreneurs and

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executives who want to promote more environmentally friendly processes

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at work. So they can allow... to distribute

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to committees, environmental committees at work. And those committees

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can actually put together the guides and say, hey,

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how can we adapt this to our business practices? And how can

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we become more sustainable at our workplace? It empowers your

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staff, if you own a business, it empowers your staff

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to be more conscious, to make them feel

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and do better and use more sustainable practices in

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their life. I mean, I know a lot of times people are working from home,

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some people are working at work. So having these committees for

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both situations, if you're a hybrid workplace or you work completely

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remote or you work at work, to have these guides to

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be able to shell out to employees if you're part of an HR or

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human resource department would be great to have. for your

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employees. Employees can lead the charge on disruptive change

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by advocating policies to reduce environmental impact and improve corporate

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transparency. At Scripps Health,

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an employee-led sustainability council brought forth improvements in

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operations across a variety of areas, including construction, energy,

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food, grounds, recycling, supply chain,

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transportation, and vendor partnerships.

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So another step could be swapping older incandescent light bulbs

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with energy starts sufficient or certified bulbs that

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can reduce power consumption and lighting fixture of a lighting

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fixture by 90% according to the EPA. So there are some

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ways that could really help the business save money but all and

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empower their employees to put these guides together for their

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their workplace. So A quick and easy guide, three

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quick easy steps. Stay away from, you

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know, highly farmed or, you

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know, factory farm type of food. Get more

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local, you know, connect with your local farmers at your farmers markets.

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Usually every place has them and you'll be able to, in

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North America anyway that I know, and you'll be able to connect more with, you

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know, people who are creating your food. You get to know the people who are creating food instead of

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just buying it at a grocery store. So there are always farmers

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markets around, there's always places, sometimes there's companies that create

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these ways of getting vegetables from different farmers locally or

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meat sources from different farmers if you're looking, it's a silly meat. And

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then of course stay away from fast fashion brands, go more wool. Try

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and stay away from highly processed and synthetic fibers. And

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then of course the last one is putting these energy and sustainability practices

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into your workplace. so that you can empower your employees as

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well as do some really great savings with

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your company. So that's always good for companies you save on the bottom line.

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And you are more sustainable after that. So it's always great.

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Stay away from greenwashing, of course, and do your best to lower your

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carbon footprint. And of course, always start off with a

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calculator that at least gives you an estimate of what you're doing. Start off...

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I'll put the link in the show notes. and you can check that out. But

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thank you again for listening. I'd love to hear if you go through this calculator,

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what your level's at, how much do you think you can lower it by, or if you've

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lowered it in the past and followed a similar process, I'd love

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to hear from you. Just put a comment on the YouTube channel or Spotify, or

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send me a DM on Instagram, at howtoprotecttheocean. I'd

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love to hear from you. That's at howtoprotecttheocean. But thank you so much for joining

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me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.