The carbon footprint imagery, the actual footprints to be exact, have always been a reminder of my own physical ones. Mine don’t look like the one on the left, they look like the one on the right. This fact has recently become relevant again as I’m writing these lines on how we can all do something to reduce our carbon footprint.
It took me a long time to figure out what to write about as a follow up to the expedition to Antarctica. Finally, some clarity emerged from the struggle between the activity of ever day life and the massive amount of responsibility felt, the challenges seen and the possibilities that opened up while exploring the Antarctic peninsula. We need to do more… I need to do more. At Aptiv, we have started projects at the enterprise wide level to ensure that we have a bigger impact on CO2 emissions, this problem that affect all of us independently from where you are when reading this post. Today I am reflecting on those things that can be done at the personal level, and as we do in every other aspect of continuous improvement, if you can’t measure it, you can improve it. I wanted to understand what is my carbon footprint. There are several tools out there to make the calculation. They can go from something pretty simple like looking at how your city ranks on carbon emissions, to a very detailed analysis of your energy consumption at home, transportation, waste management and, very importantly, what you eat. So let’s look how do I rank in my carbon footprint. First of all, I live in the suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana. Which according to www.citycarbonfootrpints.info ranks 123 globally in total emissions of CO2. When normalized to emissions per person the ranking goes up to 45, pretty significant. I also used US EPA’s carbon footprint calculator (https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/ ) and came at 22 metric tons of CO2 per year. Now these numbers don’t say much, what matters is the action triggered by data. These 22 metric tons per year can be translated to an offset of 22 trees per year. It means that I need to plant 22 trees per year to neutralize my emissions. Roughly 2 trees per month. One every two weeks. For the rest of my life.
Going back to the footprint analogy, my physical footprints cover less area than normal ones. A neurological syndrome that affects the whole nervous system and the bone structure of feet and hands have caused this anomaly. Several surgeries helped, however, chronic pain and funny walking are a permanent reminder. I’m grateful about my feet, they have made me learn about perseverance and resilience. The same perseverance and resilience needed to meet these big global challenges. They have taken me around the world, allow me to meet wonderful people and be inspired by their drive and actions. These feet also took me to Antarctica, and they just don’t stop. Not today, not the next weeks, not ever.
I didn’t want to just list a number of recommendations without walking the talk first. Without showing that I’m trying to reduce my carbon footprint to match my physical footprints, as inconvenient as it might be. I also didn’t want this post to sound preachy, like telling you, what you should do. I rather share, some of my personal story and what I plan to do next. That’s it.
My personal challenge, and I regretted it at the same time I thought about it, is to compete in a Sprint Triathlon this coming August 11, and even though is not my first triathlon, this is the first time that I will do it with on a vegetarian diet. It won’t only be the swimming, biking and running training, it will be doing it while eating just plants as much as possible. This is why, the difference in the amount of water needed and the amount of CO2 generated by animal products, compared to plants is staggering. 6.5 pounds of CO2 per serving of beef compared to less than 0.5 pounds per serving for plant based protein. I don’t advocate for everybody eating just a plant based diet, however, if we all could replace a meal or two a week with a plant base meal we could give the planet a break. The second revolves about the bicycle, bicycles are an alternative to reduce our usage of cars, however, every time I think about using the bike instead of the car, and I map the route in my head, I think of safety. Safety in Aptiv is in our DNA, we are safety. Safety, safety, safety. I also reflect on the benefits of Autonomous Driving and how, by making driving safer, we will make it also greener. Then it all clicked. I imagined a no so distant future where bikes and cars talk and you ride your bike with the confidence that all cars know where you and your bike are at all times, independently from visibility. So, challenge number two is to find like-minded people in the company to develop some sort of device for the helmet or the bike itself hat communicates with autonomous cars. Third, we have found the person I will be supporting to join the Climate Force expedition to the Arctic in 2019. I will use this opportunity to raise awareness and help fundraising for her expedition.
Sir Rob Swan will tell you that he hates the cold and walking and walking in the cold even more, still, he’s the first human that have walked to both poles. I can tell you that I don’t like running. I’ve been advised not to run. Every single step hurts. I also love food, every group of food. It doesn’t look like the best time to be committing to something like this, but there’s no other time but now. News broke recently that Antarctica is warming at 3 times the expected rate. The time is now.
Those are the three things I’m doing next, by making them public, I make that commitment stronger and hope to find like-minded people to support one, two or all of the actions.
Aldo
Here it is too, after all, the list of things anyone can do to reduce their personal footprint
· Turn up A/C thermostat in summer. Turn down heating thermostat in winter. Even one degree makes a difference in power consumption and CO2 generation while being almost unnoticeable to us. Insulate and seal your home. Install a programmable thermostat
· Properly inflated tires. Proper pressure is always in a sticker in the driver door. Make it a routine to check the tire pressure with certain frequency, like once a week
· Avoid traffic. Use traffic apps. Waze I’ve seen waze being very popular in several of the countries we call home. Personally I’ve found it useful even for drives that I’m familiar with to use the navigation since it has traffic information and can propose alternative routes to avoid congestion. I think this is going to be one of the great contributions of our autonomous driving technology, where algorithms will use traffic information to avoid congestions, improving the quality of the ride and reducing emissions at the same time
· Reduce excess weight from your car. This is something that has happened to all of us I think, you were supposed to deliver something, you put it in the trunk of your car, something happens and you are not able to do it that day. Days go by and before you know it, you have been driving with this extra weight for multiple days.
· Replace bulbs. Very simple, yet something to keep in mind. Maybe not all your lights at once, but what about a room per month, the idea as with everything else is to start. What I have found that stops me from buying the replacement bulbs when I’m at the store is to remember the “watts” that I need. An idea could be to write down a list in your phone with the lights needed per room and the watts for each, then in the same list write this rule of thumb when comparing to LED lights, which measure intensity in lumens (total light output) instead of watts (power consumption)
Traditional Incandescent lights -Watts
LED -Lumens
100
1600
75
1100
60
800
40
450
· Enable the power management features on your computer (or any other device that comes with this feature) Once you set this features, energy will be saved without having to remember
· Wash clothes in cold water
· Replace appliances for more energy efficient ones. In a lot of countries there incentives to replace old inefficient appliances for new a more efficient ones. A more efficient refrigerator will pay for itself in the long term
· Drive less / Improve gas mileage/efficiency. This can be achieved in different ways, public transportation, carpooling, home office, my personal favorite, use your bike more
· Perform regular maintenance to your vehicle
· Reuse and recycle more, but first of all, if something can’t be reused, refuse it. Single use plastic is one of the biggest challenges, because is cheap and it is convenient. Providing alternatives at work should be an open item for all us until we are able to control it. Bring your own bags .
· Increase plant based food. Red meat requires 28 times more land to produce than pork or chicken, 11 times more water and results in five times more climate-warming emissions. When compared to potatoes, wheat, and rice, the impact of beef per calorie is even more extreme, requiring 160 times more land and producing 11 times more greenhouse gases.
· Climate appropriate plants in the garden
· Solar Panels where local markets allow it. And if not allowed, or there’s no market, advocate for the implementation of mechanisms at local level.