By Keven Wong
“Reducing the impact of human activity on our planet is one of this age’s most important challenges. The choices we make now will have an enormous impact on future generations.” This comes from the introduction to the book Vivre avec une seule planète (Living with Just One Planet), a guide to decreasing your daily ecological footprint, by Camille Dauphinais-Pelletier with Élizabeth Ménard.
3.7: That’s the number of Earths we would need if everyone lived like the average Canadian. In 2019, Canada had an ecological footprint equivalent to 296 million global hectares, compared to China, the worldwide leader with 5.1 billion global hectares.
Nonetheless, if we calculate the per-person footprint, Canada rises to the top of the heap with 7.9 global hectares per inhabitant, compared with 3.5 global hectares per head for China. According to William E. Rees, a professor at the University of British Columba, people should ideally have a footprint of about 1.7 global hectares each. The average Canadian therefore consumes 3.7 times what they should be consuming.
Faced with these numbers, ecoanxiety can arise. What can we as individuals do on a daily basis to improve the situation? Is this a lost cause? Where do we start?
Our daily choices determine our ecological footprint. Spheres of our lives in whch we can cut back include consuming, housing, feeding, transport, waste management, as well as our trips and activities. These are the categories delineated by Vivre avec une seule planète. The authors suggest several positive eco-actions that are good for our planet, not to mention our health and our pocketbook.
Change can be difficult, even modest change. The idea isn’t to live in privation, but to bring these changes slowly into your life until they become part of your everyday routine.
Consuming Too Much
Our consumption has grown over the last few decades, especially with the rise of social media, influencers, and fast fashion. Between 1998 and 2019, average annual spending by a Canadian household exploded from $36,450 to $68,980! We buy more objects and clothes. Online shopping encourages this.
Often, the things we buy ourselves aren’t necessary. We can always rent or buy second-hand. Adopting “deconsumerist” habits reduces your footprint, and saves money.
There are several sharing groups (groups de partage) across Quebec. The principle is simple: people share goods such as tools, machines or other objects. Some libraries propose renting out technological materials and resources. You can also visit a Fab Lab, which is a worldwide network of workshops equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools. Working with different materials, they can make almost anything.
When you shop, it’s important to look at an object’s quality. Buying things that last means you will buy less stuff in the long run.
Housing
Between 1975 and 2010, the size of an average Canadian home almost doubled, from 1,050 square feet to 1,950 square feet. We buy more stuff to fill up all that extra space.
Reducing our heating and electricity consumption reduces our carbon footprint. We can do this by living in a smaller space.
In terms of inside our dwelling, we can turn towards ecological products. We can fill used bottles and jars with household recipes (as suggested by the website of Les Mauvaises herbes boutique), or shop at no-frills bulk stores.
Food
Food bought by Quebec households accounts for 25% of their annual carbon footprint. Ecological food consumption means you should: 1) Reduce food waste; 2) Eat more vegetable products; 3) Select local products; 4) Buy food that is not wrapped.
Food waste is especially crucial. Regardless of what choices you make, if you end up throwing stuff away, it will all have been in vain.
Eating vegetable-based products is important. Even meat-eaters can help out. Not all meat products have the same footprint. Beef is at the top of the pyramid, with 50 kg of carbon emissions per 100 grams of protein, compared to pork at 7.6 kg and chicken at 5.7 kg. You can reduce your footprint substantially by changing your ground beef purchases to ground pork.
Not surprisingly, vegetable-based products are at the bottom of the carbon footprint ranking. Feeding livestock and poultry requires a lot of vegetable products. By eating vegetables we skip a very polluting step in meat production, and we save money. Local consumption also has many benefits. Eating local reduces carbon emissions caused by transportation.
But you have to keep track of seasonal products. Consuming local greenhouse-grown tomatoes in winter can be worse than buying Mexican vegetables, because greenhouses are often heated using natural gas. Which can cause more environmental damage than having your tomato flown 3,000 km to your supermarket.
As seen in Reflet de Société, No. 32-5, juin-juillet (June-July) 2024, pages 18-19.
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