4 Ways to Leave a Lighter Footprint When You Travel Everyday!
Whether you’re travelling 10 minutes into the city or you’re going on an around-the-world trip we can all travel lighter and reduce our environmental footprint everyday by taking small steps, or baby steps to be more aware and thoughtful and reduce our impact.
Take Alternative Transport
Everyone knows that it’s more environmentally friendly to walk or ride a bike or even catch a bus than to drive. Of course this will not only have a big impact on our footprint but also our life. Physically it’s great for us to walk or ride instead of drive but it can impact on our lives in other ways as well. It can be time consuming which is why many of us opt to take the car. If you can’t commit to riding your bike to and from work every day then start off with once a week. Pick a lighter work day and stick with it. Remember it’s all about baby steps. Easy steps we can all take to reduce our carbon footprint.
Buy Responsibly
Of course if you do have to take the car then consider your actual mode of transport. If you’re in the market to buy a new car, ask yourself if you really need to. Can you be a one car family? Ask yourself if the car is environmentally friendly or rather as environmentally friendly as a car can be. If you have a gas guzzler, reduce your driving time. If you’re in the market, buy an electric vehicle or a second hand car instead of new, it’ll reduce your impact on the environment and your bank account. Win-win.
Sharing is Caring
If you are going to take the car to work, invite others from your workplace or nearby to drive with you. Even better if you can take it in turns as it will not only reduce your environmental footprint but it’ll also reduce the amount you spend on fuel. If you really want to reduce your carbon footprint you should consider car sharing. With a car to every person, most cars remain unused for 96% of the time. By car sharing you can stop wasting resources, money and space.
Offer to Offset
There’s nothing environmentally friendly about flying to the other side of the world so if you’re going travelling, offer to offset. Whether you do it before or after your trip you can offset your carbon emissions and have a carbon neutral flight by offsetting. For every flight support sustainability projects and offset your measurable carbon footprint via tree planting initiatives. You can learn how to offset your carbon emissions with this carbon footprint calculator.
Whether you choose to bike it to work one day or more a week, start catching the bus or ride sharing there are many baby steps we can take each day to reduce our carbon footprint during travel times. Of course stepping more lightly when you travel accounts for just one of the many ways we can reduce our environmental impact every day.
You can also take advantage of hotels near airports. By staying there you may be able to eliminate the need for more carbon emissions from a rental car, or the hotel shuttle if it is within walking distance. And at the very least, you would be driving much less than a hotel that is miles from the airport!
