Real Talk

4 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint Without Leaving the Sofa

Please, don’t get up. But please do these things

Not to be rude, but anyone else out there feeling climate change fatigue? It seems like every day there’s a new thing we need to buy, service we need to subscribe to, or appliance we need to update in order to be more eco-friendly. And while we’re 100% down to adopt new habits and upgrade our homes in order to reduce our own carbon footprints, it’s overwhelming to know where to start, not to mention the only free time we have to do so is on the precious weekend. So, for all of you out there who are passionate about being green, but also love vegging out on the sofa all Sunday long, we found the antidote for you. Clever chatted with Max Moinian from @futureearth—the climate change–focused Instagram account she started with Steph Shepherd—about dead-easy things you can do with your feet up and laptop in hand to reduce your carbon footprint today. “We can’t buy our way out of the climate crisis,” explains Max. “But as consumers there is collective power in our individual pockets. So when you need to spend, spend smarter.” Here, Max’s four tips on how to do just that:

Purchase Renewable Energy

Apartment dwellers in dense urban areas may believe their personal carbon footprint is smaller than that of their suburban counterparts since their home takes up less square footage. But we’re not off the hook: Buildings account for about 66% of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions, and half of New Yorkers’ energy use happens at home, mainly for lighting, heating, air-conditioning, and stove cooking. And while apartment dwellers in any city can’t exactly throw some solar panels up on their fire escapes to reduce their personal carbon emissions, they can switch their energy source to a company that generates its electricity mostly from renewable sources like wind and solar. For New Yorkers, that means Con Edison will buy as much electricity from renewable energy companies as we demand them to. Will the actual electricity generated from a remote wind farm make it all the way to your apartment? Probably not. But what you are doing is essentially demanding Con Ed (or whoever your provider is) to feed the grid with more clean energy, rather than fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. (Ew!) This is referred to as green power purchasing.

While the overall percent of renewable energy in the NYC grid is very small (3%), it’s projected to increase dramatically as off-shore wind comes online in the next 10 years. Wind energy is a critical part of the solution to NYC achieving 80% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, according to 350 NYC.

Photo by PARETO/Getty Images

So, how do you make the switch, without getting up from your comfy sofa? First, choose a renewable energy provider; the most common sources are wind, solar, tidal, hydroelectric, biomass, and fuel cell. New Yorkers can compare providers here. I use Green Mountain Energy, which is currently available in eight states nationwide. Go to the provider’s site and have your energy bill account number on hand—this is all you’ll need to sign up online or over the phone. You will keep paying your electric bill the same way. There is no contract or fee to switch, and you don’t need any special equipment. It couldn’t be easier. I only saw about a 10% increase in my utility bill, but as more and more people in my city make the switch, the price will go down, so we’re in this together.

Clean Your Data

Digital technologies now account for 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. And with our streaming, photo-snapping, 5G lifestyle, that’s estimated to double by 2025. This is in part because storing and transferring data requires a lot of energy. When you back up and store your data on the cloud, it’s not literally floating in the sky. It’s physical, sitting on a server somewhere in the world. Thankfully, there’s a lot you can do here to reduce your digital consumption.

  1. Don’t be a digital hoarder. Clean out your files the same way you would if you had a literal filing cabinet. Be a digital minimalist—and save money—by signing up for a smaller cloud-storage plan. By imposing limits on myself, I had to confront that I was hoarding files with names like “presentation-FINAL-FINAL-version-C.pdf.” I don’t need those, or 14 of the 15 selfies I took when I caught good light and was feeling myself.

Your cloud is really just a data center powered by physical servers that consume a tremendous amount of electricity. Yikes.

Photo by Cybrain/Getty Images
  1. Cloud storage is admittedly impossible to give up altogether, so choose a clean(er) cloud server. These companies either generate their own renewable electricity to power servers or purchase credits (like what you did with your energy source earlier). According to Greenpeace, Amazon Web Services holds a majority share of the market yet the lowest green commitments. Apple, Dropbox, and Microsoft are better cloud options.

  2. Host your website with a company that runs on renewable energy. The Green Web Foundation offers a directory of hosts from around the world.

Offset Every Time You Jet-Set

Purchasing offsets is a way to compensate for your personal carbon emissions. To be clear, offsetting is not a solution to a fossil-fuel lifestyle; you should take steps to reduce your energy use, and switch to renewable energy sources. But for the stuff we simply can’t give up altogether, like air travel, offsetting does help and is something you can accomplish in your sweatpants. The first step is to calculate your footprint. You can do this every time you fly, annually, or even retroactively to make up for your whole, entire life! The calculator will give you a number of tonnes of carbon dioxide you have emitted, which is then converted into dollars you can donate to a cause that will offset your carbon output.

While there are many organizations that will happily take your money, you need to be a smart shopper when it comes to offsetting, and beware of controversial offsetting practices that may actually be doing more harm than good. For example, tree planting may be incentivizing trees to be planted like crops: in single-file lines, requiring a lot of water, covered in chemicals, without biodiversity. In some cases, it has been reported that tree-planting organizations are a greenwashing tool for land-grabbing, and indigenous people and villagers have been kicked off the land they survived on in the name of “conservation”—certainly not what I want to do with my money! But planting trees is just one of many options. The safest and best bet may be to support renewable energy projects or carbon-capture technologies, which collect methane gas from landfills. I am sharing the UN Climate Neutral Now site because it has been vetted to me by experts, 100% of your donation goes to the cause, and they have many projects to choose from.

Taking off on an airplane burns more fuel than cruising, so shorter domestic flights actually have a higher rate of emissions per passenger. Keep this in mind when you’re deciding between a direct flight and one that requires a layover. You may save some money on multi-stop trips, but your carbon footprint will be much bigger for it.

Photo by Greg Bajor/Getty Images

Offsetting is easy, but sometimes so are other ways to travel, like taking trains instead of short flights. Trains and buses have a significantly lower carbon footprint than planes. In Sweden, the buzzword flygskam, which translates to “flight shame,” caused a significant reduction in domestic flights and increase in train use. Maybe if more of our dollars divert from air travel to mass transit, we will have fancy, reliable trains. And budget prices.

Greenify Your Search Engine

I’m leaving the easiest for last. Ecosia is a carbon-negative search engine that turns your late-night puppy video sessions into newly planted trees around the world. Every time you search “Corgi puppy waddle,” Ecosia donates 80% of their ad revenue from that search to partner organizations that plant trees in threatened environments around the world. (While I warned you about negative tree-planting practices earlier, Ecosia has been B Corporation certified for the past five years, which means they meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance.) They also power servers from their very own solar farm, so there’s no carbon emissions from your internet habit. Download the app on your phone or the Google Chrome plug-in now—it literally takes 30 seconds.

Follow @futureearth on Instagram to stay informed on all things climate change and get even more tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint.

@futureearth's Instagram feed curated by Max and Steph.