How to work out your sports eco-backpack?

We’ve learned how important regular exercise is for us. While running through the green parks and forests we appreciate the natural environment around us. But do we ever think if your sport routines have any impact on the environment somehow. The impacts are obvious if we have a large motor boat to cruise around. If boating is not the thing for you, there are still few rules of thumb to keep in mind to avoid adding too many kilograms to your eco-backpack while taking your regular exercise.

Transport, how to get there?
Use your muscle power to get to the sports facility. Public transport is almost as good but doesn’t make a good warm up exercise. If connections are poor maybe you can take turns with your friends and share a ride.

Transport, don't go far
Take advantage of sports facilities near by our home or place of work to cut down extra kilometres.

Sports facilities
The less constructed, heated or cooled space is needed, the better. Building of sports facilities require natural resources and heating and cooling consume energy. Basically if you go jogging or play football outdoors it probably it adds fewer kilograms to your eco-backpack than swimming in swim hall or playing ice hockey indoors. Remember still that usually if you swap a car ride to the site to bus or bicycle ride you probably save more than by giving up your favourite indoor sport for jogging.

Shoes, bats, and other equipment
Equipment does not usually cause so much pressure on the environment compared to sports related mobility and sport facilities. Same rules apply for sports equipment like for other stuff. Use the things you already have as long as possible, share goods, go for second hand items when you need to buy something.

Add exercise to your everyday routine
If can cycle to work or grocery store it helps you to keep fit but it also saves time since you don’t need to dedicate so much time for “doing sports”. The new routine might drop off few kilos from your waist and eco-backpack too.

We provide some sports related eco-actions to help you lighten your sports eco-backpack. Summer is good time for all the sports with light eco-backpack. Enjoy!

Do small things matter?

Every now and then the potential of small everyday pro-environment choices and actions are questioned. People claim that if we only do small things we’ll only achieve small changes. The importance of high level agreements to cut emissions is of course crucial. Similarly no one can question the need for regulations for more sustainable buildings, energy production, transport systems and city planning.

However, we might feel powerless in front of the huge environmental challenges we face and get frustrated about the slow pace of change in the high level decision making. But our everyday life matters too. Food, mobility, housing and energy use at home make up the majority of the weight our personal eco-backpacks. Why wouldn’t we take control over our choices in our everyday life? We can start right away to make improvements. Take a walk or ride your bike, cut some off the meat every now and then, and turn down the thermostat. These are easy, quick and inexpensive ways to make a difference.

The opponents of green consumption have a point criticising the potential of green products. It is true that if we buy more just because it is greener we are fooling ourselves and green washing our own life. But when it comes to renewable energy for instance we have a green product to go for. Most of us would still like to heat our homes and run computers, right?

Behaviour change is what we need. We believe that small is better than nothing but it is true that also huge changes can be made in personal life if we look at food, mobility and housing. Cutting down kilometres and questioning the need for bigger homes are definitely big changes and the ones we urgently need for. The good news is that by taking these decisions we are adopting overall pro-environmental practices, not just tackling one single issue like reducing air pollution for instance.

Making individual and informed choices does not mean you have to manage it all alone. There is something between individual choices and high level decision making, communities. It gives you much more confident and powerful feeling when you find other people doing their bit too. The supporting community can be consist of your real life friends, neighbours or people you around the world you know through the online communities. Have you already challenged your friends to take some of the One did it eco-actions?

How are we doing?

We’d like to thank all active One did it members for letting us know what you think about the site! I picked up some of the issues mentioned in your feedback since they might be of interest for others too:

“I don’t know how much energy I use.”

In case your landlord pays for your electricity, heat and gas it is not easy to know the exact amount of consumption. This is why we have added the EU-average buttons on the test. The estimate gives you a rough idea about energy use and lets you proceed with the test. However, energy use has a major contribution on the test result so finding out your personal figures and updating test might change your result. If you can follow up your energy use it is also much more rewarding to save energy.

“It was difficult to measure the amount of kilometres travelled.”

We seek for solutions to make it easier to estimate the travelled kilometres. If you have a car, maybe you have an idea how much you drive during one year? If you use public transport do you know if your daily travel is closer to 10 or 50 kilometres. The exact numbers are not so much important as the magnitude.

“In the extended test, why do you measure the meat, fish and dairy consumption by calculating the number of days these products are consumed?”

We have used FAO statistics to estimate the EU average meat, fish and dairy consumption per day per capita in grams. It is true that daily consumption varies from person to person. That’s why we have mentioned the estimated daily intake of these foodstuffs (in grams). If you know your exact meat, fish and dairy consumption in grams, check the reference values on the grey info texts when filling in the extended food section.

“I’ve already measured my carbon footprint.”

The amount of carbon emissions released by our actions is one aspect of environmental burden of our everyday life but not the whole story. One did it and the ecological backpack concept concentrates on the natural resource use. How much renewable and non-renewable resources your lifestyle consumes? Taking the One did it test helps you to get an idea which consumption sectors more important than the others. The next step is to take the eco-actions to lighten the eco-backpack of one’s lifestyle.

In general people find the test easy and useful. The comments show that there is a need to prepare a FAQ section on the site. To prepare this we look forward to getting more valuable feedback, questions and comments from you. Especially we’d like to know what do you think about eco-actions and other features of the site in addition to the test. What kind of features you’d like to see on One did it site in the future? What would best help you to adopt more sustainable lifestyle? Please use the feedback form to drop us a line about your thoughts.

Green twist of celebration

Summer is the time for celebrations. And celebrate we do! We enjoy barbecue with friends; family get together parties; graduation celebration; weddings and many more. Great people, food and drink, music and dancing makes the party.

In our everyday life we try to minimise the size of our eco-backpacks, take the bus, save electricity and go for the seasonal food. How about the special days, do we forget environmental conscious choices then? Or is it even necessary to think about the environment on those special occasions? They say it is much more important what you do in your everyday life since you don’t have a party each day. But if you are the host you have a great opportunity to affect the eco-backpack of the occasion.

Few simple rules make it easy to lighten the eco-backpack of the party. First of all, transport. If you have 20 guests and they all travel 100 kilometres back and forth it makes total 2000 passenger kilometres. If you can, choose the venue so that travelling of the quests is minimised. In addition to travelled kilometres, it is important that people can use the public transport. If not possible would it be worth to arrange bus transportation for instance?

Another important thing is food. Remember that the eco-backpack of one kilogram of beef is about 46 kg and one kilo of apples carries a backpack of only 2 kilograms. Go easy on the meat and cheese and enjoy the delicious and fresh veggies, fruits and berries of the season. There is no need to turn your feast totally vegetarian or vegan but pay attention to the meat and cheese vs. veggie ratio.

What about the gifts? If you feel you have everything you need, let people know about it. Guests can be asked to bring some food or drink instead. If it is more formal event maybe you can ask people to donate some money for a charity you appreciate. The real eco-geeks could say that best present for them is that people take the bike, bus, train or shared ride to come to the party.

If you are not the host but the guest, what can you do then? Always respect the choices and wishes of the host. If a gift list is awailable it is good idea to stick with that to avoid giving stuff not needed. When it comes to dining, maybe you can ask in advance if a vegetarian choice will be available on the menu? Probably the best thing you can do to lighten your eco-backpack is to go for public transport or ask someone to share a ride with you.

True eco-warriors can find numerous ways to make their celebrations even more green. However, taking into account the few points mentioned here you are already doing significant actions to lighten the eco-backpack of your party. Have fun!