Home SHAPE Education Environmental Awareness Make Our Environment a Personal Priority

Make Our Environment a Personal Priority

Don’t Stop at Earth Hour!! On Saturday March 29th, 2008, Canada led the world by turning out our lights from 8 to 9 pm, helping to make earth hour a global success. With one of the highest participation rates across the globe (over 150 cities!), Canada delivered a clear message that we need to take action on climate change now! As a country, we should be very proud that our efforts have made this an event to remember. But why stop there? What can we as Canadian individuals do to help promote this important message and preserve our planet Earth? The World Wildlife Foundation’s newest conservation program, The Good Life, is “an action oriented campaign mobilizing Canadians to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” One place where changing our actions is both so important and so easy, is the workplace. Here are a few simple changes you can make to your daily work routine, which can add up to reduce your footprint on the planet: TRANSPORTATION ALONE: Carpool: Transportation contributes to more than 30% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Sharing a ride to and from work means you will be taking as many as 3 cars off the road during peak driving hours, twice per day! Not only does carpooling decrease the amount of harmful greenhouse gases emitted into the air by vehicles, but it also decreases traffic congestion. This means that growing cities will not be forced to build more roads, which conserves our environment and saves money! Overall, every litre of gasoline you save means 2.4 fewer kilograms of carbon dioxide enters our atmosphere. Fly less, teleconference more: Air travel contributes to climate change more than any other form of transportation, per kilometer. And with the rise of discount flights, we are all flying more often! In addition, due to the location in the atmosphere that airplanes release their harmful emissions, they have a 2.7 times greater effect on climate change versus those released at ground level. With the help of today’s highly developed technology, we are able to conduct business through various forms that can reduce the environmental footprint that business flights have. Analyze the purpose of an upcoming meeting to see if teleconferencing, conference calling, web or video conferencing may be an effective alternative. All of these options offer a type of personal contact that can simulate an actual face-to-face meeting, while being less expensive and much more environmentally friendly! Work from home one day per week: Depending on your job, talk to your boss about working from home one day per week. Often, it just takes a phone line, high speed internet connection and a computer to successfully work from home and cut back on your commute’s harmful carbon emissions and road congestion. By working at home just one day a week, you can save 270 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions from your vehicle over a year. And, you will save money in gas and repairs, and perhaps even more if you can get by owning one less vehicle! TURN POWER OFF AT THE SOURCE: By now, it should really be second nature to turn off your computer, printer and lights when leaving your office, even if it is just for a coffee break. But even when your electrical devices are turned off, the power bar they are plugged into uses approximately 40% of the energy from each device!! When you leave for the day or the weekend, make sure you turn off the power bar itself, which will greatly save on energy consumption. REUSE, REUSE, REUSE: If everyone used eco-friendly, reusable water bottles, coffee cups, Tupperware and lunch bags on a daily basis, this would drastically reduce the amount of waste entering into the landfills. Items such as Styrofoam cups, plastic Ziploc bags, grocery bags and water bottles are most often not reused, and thrown into the garbage. Plastic grocery bags alone can take 20 to 1,000 years to decompose, and when they finally do, they breakdown into smaller bits that can contaminate water and soil, while also becoming fatalities for wild animals. USE RECYLCED PAPER PRODUCTS: Just think about the sheer amount of paper products that your office uses! If it takes 70-90% less energy to make recycled paper, while at the same time preserving our precious forests…..why not!? ATTENTION BUSINESS OWNERS! GET AN ENERGY AUDIT: Energy audits help to find where your business (or home) is poorly insulated and/or energy inefficient. You will truly benefit from it in the long run, by saving up to 30% off your energy bill and 1,000 pounds of harmful carbon dioxide per year! OTHER OFFICE NO BRAINERS FOR MINIMIZING OUR GLOBAL FOOTPRINT: Take local transit Walk or bike Email vs. print Recycle and compost Use compact fluorescent lighting (CFL) Use the dishwasher only when it’s full Conservation of our Earth is the issue of today, tomorrow and the future. Let’s do our part to control Climate Change and preserve our precious elements! For further information on how you can HELP MAKE a DIFFERENCE, please visit WWF Canada