Photographed by Huy Luong | Styled by Dylan Cao
At this moment, when many of us are grounded, we have the opportunity to re-think our priorities. This week, we’re focusing on how we can shift our lifestyle choices so that they better align with our values. Here’s the briefest summary of Livia Albeck-Ripka’s guide to reducing your carbon footprint. We highly recommend Albeck-Ripka's New York Times article that is full of outstanding tips and resources
Drive Less & Fly Less. Try taking a train, bus or better yet, ride a bike. You will likely need to use a car this year. So, when you do, make your trip more climate-friendly. If you can’t avoid flying, one way of making up for the emissions caused is to offset them by donating money to sustainable projects
Eat Less Meat & Waste Less Food. Overall, eating low down the food chain as often as you can is a probably a good way to reduce your carbon footprint and stay healthy, say experts. Meal prep mindfully. On average, Americans waste around 40 percent of the food they buy.
Make your home more energy efficient. In the average American home, 25 percent of energy is used to heat spaces, 13 percent is used to heat water, 11 percent is used for cooling and the remainder is spent on appliances, according to estimates from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Making even small changes to these can make a big difference.
Recycle. Americans generate about roughly 258 million tons of trash a year, 169 million tons of which ends up in landfills and incinerators.
Shop & Dress Sustainably. According to the World Resources Institute, 20 items of clothing are manufactured per person, per year. This is because of “fast fashion”: clothes that are produced quickly, cheaply and unsustainably. As the price of our clothes drops, the environmental (and human) costs increase.
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