Elections in the European Union take place June 4.-7. 2009. Elected every five years, the European Parliament is a major and powerful player in European Union decision-making. One Did It challenges the candidates to measure the weight of their ecological backpacks and publish blogs of candidates that have measured eco-backpacks in this blog.
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It is evident that because of the nature of their work the MEP's might have heavier ecobackpack compared to average citizens' backpack. We also remind that the travelling payed by the employer can be excluded from the personal eco-backpack calculation since it should be allocated to the employer's backpack.
We still encourage all candidates to calculate their eco-backpacks, as it is important that the candidates are aware of their own ecological backpacks and have at least a hint how to reduce the environmental burden of their lifestyle. As the European Parliament leads by example and it is planning to cut its CO2 emissions by 30% by 2020 the individual MEPs should act as an example to all EU citizens.
The Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched a campaign “What does a person need”. According to the site the purpose of the campaign is to “inspire people to think about their everyday choices and their effects on the lives of people in other parts of the world”. What Finns believe they can do to affect the wellbeing of people in other nations? According to the survey prepared for the campaign, on top of the list was recycling. You know, not trashing the goods you don’t need any more but taking them to charity, recycling centres etc.
It is nothing new about this actually. Every time Finns are asked about what they think they can do to tackle the climate change for instance, recycling and sorting waste is high on the list. It is actually great that the reuse and recycle mantra has reached people. However, did we forget the first R, reduce? There would be much less recycling to worry about if we’d reduce first.
In my opinion, this is what the campaign is all about. We are reminded about the possibility to reduce consumption and to reconsider what we actually need instead of what we want. The question of needs and wants was a current one for me on last weekend. I was wandering around clothing stores searching for a suit for my companion. I didn’t question his need for a new suit (no doubt needs are based on social norms too) but I had difficulties questioning my own wants rising from colourful summer collections. Would I need a dress suitable for temperatures above 30 ⁰C if I’d stay the whole summer here in the North? At the end of the day my companion got the suit he was looking for but I managed to leave all the wants behind. I was proud of myself.
Next day I took a little cycling tour around Helsinki and got myself photographed in the fields of Viikki, a beautiful area with an arboretum, nature conservation area and the fields of the faculty of agriculture and forestry. When I returned home and arranged my photos, accidentally two almost identical photos appeared next to each other. In the first one I’m in Bucharest city centre in the autumn 2007 and the second one presents the recent moment in Viikki, where I’m trying to make friends with one of the cows on the field. I’m holding almost the same position and wearing the same outfit. Only the background is different. The two almost identical settings made me think if I should have bought a new outfit since I seem to have the same clothes in every photo a year after a year.
But in the end, did I really need the new outfit? I had enjoyed both of the Kodak moments a lot: the company, location, weather, and especially the freedom of a Sunday afternoon. How a trendy outfit could have made it better?
So what’s the difference between a need and a want? The need for something develops slowly and you won’t get over it easily. According to my experience the items you wanted might quickly end up on the pile of things waiting to be taken to the charity but the things you actually needed you will keep until they tear apart.
On vacation it is recommended to relax and get out of daily routines but you might still make eco-friendly choices while chilling. If you have summer cottage or planning to rent one, here are some great tips you can take into consideration.
The first move is to think about how you transport vacationers from home base to the point of relaxation. It is always recommendable to use bus or train instead of personal car, sometimes routes to isolated cottages are out of reach of public transport. When renting a summer residence, you can choose location near your home or from area that can be reached by public transport. If you can’t choose location and transportation requires personal car, you can drive outside big traffic jams, and save some fuel and be much less frustrated. Try to get everybody into one car, with every seat taken; environmental pressure is divided among several passengers.
Take a new look at heating this summer and try to substitute at least some of resources with ecological ones. If you use electricity, check your electricity supplier and make sure you use electricity that is produced with wind power or other eco-labeled resource. Try to find some waste or residue fuel wood instead of primary wood and turn electricity off for a while. The heating issue is even more important during the cold season. Even if the cottage is not used, some people prefer to keep the temperature above the outside temperature. It is worth considering if the heating is really needed during the winter, it can be quit costly too.
One Did It registered users can use extended ecological backpack test to add several energy sources in secondary residence. Just take the test again after registering and you’ll see extended sections highlighted.
To keep room temperature nice and warm, check visible insulation every year, the mice and birds might have taken something to their own purposes during low maintenance time. When sealing up cracks in the cottage, keep an eye out for spider webs. Spiders like to weave them in the path of airflow to catch insects.
If you need to renovate, do it with recycled materials. Using recycled materials is a great way to save money and avoid wastage. It is important to take measurements of the things that you need before you start going out to buy materials. Visit around local recycling centers, buy-sell& trade -places, garage sales, demolition places and even local dump. Make it like an adventure and meet local people. Getting to know the people who deal with recycled materials can aid you, as many of them can give you tips on where you can find materials that you need.
Maybe the biggest influence you can do is getting to know local people and neighbors when you need builders, remodelers and developers and buy locally harvested and manufactured materials and groceries. Consider what types of resources have a local industry and make sure that your products actually come from there. And think about what veggies and herbs you can grow in your own garden. Remember to collect rainwater to water your plants. You can spread out the word with neighbors about local work and utilities, change good tips and influence consumption habits in a bigger scale than your own yard.
After you have read all this you might end up thinking how much work your own cottage requires. Renting a cottage is not a bad idea at all and it is ecological too. One Did It registered users can use extended ecological backpack test to fill the whole amount of people using the secondary residence with you.
We have gathered a few links for further reading on Finnish, and we would be interested if our readers would share similar liks to us and other readers.
If you are tired of arguing the same old issues at home you can add environment on the list next to money, sex and how to raise children. Check out the facts first to secure your back.
Helsingin Sanomat published a story in their monthly supplement about personal environmental burden in terms of carbon footprint. One of the issues raised was that men have larger footprints compared to women. Taking into account almost 30 000 answers from men and 25 000 from women on a short questionnaire it seems that among all age groups women’s average per capita carbon emissions are a couple of thousand kilograms smaller compared to men.
What about other evidence? A Swedish study about energy use showed that in a sample of Swedish people single men use more energy than single women. The difference was 20 per cent. The greatest difference was in the transport sector, men drive more than women whereas women spend more on clothing and healthcare for instance. Men have in general higher level of expenditure and this affects the result. However, energy consumption per unit of money spend was also higher in case of men compared to women.
Another study by The Environment Advisory Council of the Swedish Ministry of the Environment about ecological footprints and gender equality among the rich and the poor in global perspective and came to the conclusion that on average men’s ecological footprint is larger than women’s. However, in poor areas it is not a question of luxury consumption like cosmetics and car driving. It is about access to basic resources like energy for cooking and lightning, access to clean water and transportation services. As a result of lack of access on the basic resources the footprint is very small and the footprint of women even smaller than men’s.Imagine the debate this issue raised at home, in the office and online discussion forums! “If women spend money on clothes and cosmetics how about the usefulness of the spending if compared to cars and technical gadgets?” The next person continues:”The tech-toys are usually just for men but women spend money on things that benefit the whole family”. The following comment was quite common: “My girlfriend spends hours in hot shower and bath, she must consumes more than me!” Actually the last point might be true. According to the study by Vattenfall (1991, Energihushållning genom nya energivanor. Demonstrationsförsök i 350 småhus i Sverige) Stockholm women spend more time showering than men. Also a life cycle wide assessment of lifestyle was suggested just like in case of any product. The reason for this was that women live longer than men.
Can we actually learn anything about all this? I’d say yes. In general, men are more interested about the technical solutions but women are ready to make practical changes in their everyday life to improve sustainability. This means that we need to provide different options for making improvements in personal life. For sure we need both, technical development and behavior change.
We gathered here some of the first blog posts about One Did It and ecological backpack and wanted to pick them up to our blog. Most of them are in Finnish, but we are looking forward to see more international posts about us.
There are few peoples that have measured their ecological backpack and encouraged others to do the same. We would like to mention few of the pioneers here: Hendrik M describes himself as an European writing about environmentalism and other stuff.
Active blogger Larko took the challenge in his blog from Janne Saarikko who is the Editor of Design Finland – Finnish Design web publication, a well-known blogger in Finnish leading financial media Kauppalehti, a writing contributor to the leading Finnish financial media community Piksu.net, and active player in international social media marketing environment.
Niko Nyman is using our badge to show all how big his eco-backpack is.
“Herttaista” is a blog by 24 years old woman who writes about everyday life with ecological tone of voice in Finnish. Fun to read, lots of comments from blog readers, nice pictures! One Did It was included in a post about the grocery bags.
Noora Shingler is an environment coordinator and journalist who is interested in health and environment. She writes about food, fashion, environmental issues and events. People can read her texts in IMAGE and YLE Olotila in Finnish. She participated in the One Did It press conference which was held in Brussels in May 2008.
Finnish graphic designer reveals her other side in her blog, she likes to do paper crafts and cards and she derives her inspiration from the nature.
Latvian blog writers think they are ecological hippos; we should do something to the UI of the test result page to make users to understand they can change the equivalent item (excavator, T-rex, hippo, T-Ford, penguin and matchbox) that is displayed in the eco-backpack. We also learned that our blog badge is not good with special characters.
A few of advertising and digital media agencies have mentioned One Did it in their blogs, we would like to thank King and Viidakorumpu for noticing us.
We'll be happy to see more posts and challenges through blogs, One Did It registered users can copy the code of their ecological backpack badge and share it in their blog. We hope to spot some new blog entries and we’ll be writing about them in a while.
Here is some of One Did It team's backpack badges, how heavy is your backpack?
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