Reduce Your Footprint

The most important way to curb the impacts of climate change is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Delta realizes that purchasing offsets is one important near-term solution to reduce those impacts, but in the big picture, we can’t focus on only one solution to this large puzzle. The following list illustrates a variety of actions you can take to reduce your impact as well as links to organizations working on these issues.

Baseline
Reduce
Sequester
Support
Energy Tips

Baseline

How much greenhouse gases are generated by your lifestyle and transportation activities, and how do they translate into carbon equivalences? Delta Carbon offers an online calculator to help you determine your personal carbon footprint. Determining your baseline will help you identify the sources of your emissions and what you can do to lower them.

Delta can also assist organizations in calculating and offsetting emissions from conferences, business travel, workshops, etc. more...

Reduce

First Steps

Simple and inexpensive, these are the things you can do to start reducing your carbon footprint today!

HOME ENERGY

  • Turn off lights, appliances, and computers when not in use. Better yet, unplug them or put them on a power strip.
  • Turn down your thermostat a few degrees.
  • Turn down your thermostat at night and while you’re at work.
  • Run your dishwasher or washing machine only when there’s a full load.
  • Air-dry your laundry.
  • Defrost your fridge and freezer regularly.

WASTE AND RECYCLING

  • Reduce, reuse, recycle—in that order!
  • Buy products in bulk to cut down on packaging waste.
  • Instead of buying traditional gifts, buy environmentally preferable products (e.g. with recycled content, produced locally, is non-toxic), make a gift out of found objects, or give a donation to a sustainability-oriented charity.
  • Bring reusable bags to the grocery store instead of relying on the store’s plastic bags.
  • Don’t buy bottled water if your tap water is safe to drink (it is in most of the US)—instead, buy a water filter and use your filtered tap water at home and to fill your reusable water bottle on-the-go.

TRANSPORTATION

  • Walk, bike, or take public transportation to the gym, grocery store, or to visit nearby friends and family

With a Little More Effort

These actions require slight upfront investment of money or effort, but they pay off quickly and go a long way toward reducing your emissions and living more sustainably.

HOME ENERGY

A few home energy tips are listed here. Visit the Home Energy Tips page for more information

  • Weatherize your home: use weatherstrips on your windows and doors, and plastic films on your window to prevent heat loss.
  • Insulate your hot water tank if it was installed before 1990.
  • If you’re ready to buy a new refrigerator, dishwasher, TV, furnace, or other home appliance, look for one that has the ENERGY STAR label so you can be assured they use less electricity than standard models.
  • Change out your light bulbs to energy-saving bulbs like Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) and Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs).
  • Install temperature-control valves on your radiators.
  • Purchase green energy to reduce your emissions from electricity generation to zero.
  • Generate your own green energy by installing wind, solar electric, solar hot water, geothermal, or other power systems.

FOOD AND DIET

  • Choose foods that are grown or produced nearby—a good benchmark is 100 miles; next, 500 miles. One way to accomplish this is to buy directly from local farmers through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Learn more about CSAs and search for a provider near you at LocalHarvest.
  • Reduce your consumption of meat.
  • Increase your consumption of organic foods.

TRANSPORTATION

  • For your commute: walk, bike, take public transportation, carpool, or telecommute. Try starting with just one day a week to ease into it, then scale up to make it routine.
  • Cut down on your air travel emissions by prioritizing and reducing your trips, taking the train or bus, or using videoconferencing and other electronic communications.
  • When vacationing, use local public transportation, rent bicycles, or explore on foot. Not only will you reduce your carbon footprint, you’ll also experience your destination in a whole new light.

Sequester

Greenhouse gas emissions that can’t be reduced can be offset by doing or supporting activities that sequester them, or take them out of the atmosphere.

Not a farmer, landowner, or land project manager?

Many of us do not have the means to sequester our emissions ourselves. One of the few things we can do is plant trees, but the amount of carbon that an average tree sequesters in its lifetime (less than 1 metric ton) is small compared to the amount of carbon the average person generates every year (20 metric tons). It is often much more effective for an individual to divert the time or money spent planting trees themselves to someone else who can sequester on a much larger scale.

A carbon offset allows you to fund the storage of greenhouse gas emissions through supporting someone else’s activities. Delta Offsets support farmers, landowners and project owners in their commitment to conservation practices that store greenhouse gases.

You ARE a farmer, landowner, or land project manager?

Below are several ways you can sequester greenhouses gases, all of which Delta can help turn into revenue for you by registering your project on the Chicago Climate Exchange. Visit our carbon aggregation web site to learn more.

  • Practice conservation agriculture.

    Conventional agriculture can cause a whole range of negative environmental impacts including: nutrient and pesticide runoff, sediment loading into waterways, and soil erosion. Conservation agricultural practices (e.g. no-till and strip-till) keep the fields in place, create better quality soil, and sequester carbon. If you own farmland, balance wise land use with conservation agriculture practices to maximize the carbon sequestration potential of your land.

  • Establish grassland.

    Taking land that is degraded or has previously been in agriculture and turning it back into natural grasslands creates habitat, buffers waterways from runoff, and sequesters carbon in the soil.

  • Plant trees.

    Similar to grassland establishment, reforestation of degraded or agricultural lands has a variety of beneficial environmental impacts including habitat creation, air quality improvements, reduction of runoff into waterways, and sequestration of carbon in the tree and in the soil.

  • Manage forests sustainably.

    Existing forests can benefit from sustainable management, which promotes the growth of healthier trees, ensures the longevity of forest stands, maintenance and improvement of habitat, and storing carbon.

  • Capture methane.

    Collect and destroy methane emissions from agricultural practices, landfills and abandoned coal mines (e.g. flare or generate energy). Additionally, the methane can be used as a renewable resource for energy generation.

Support

  • Contact your elected officials to inform them of your concern for climate change and to encourage them to take legislative actions to address it. The Natural Resources Defense Council provides news and fact sheets on U.S. natural resources and energy-related policy.
  • Talk to your friends, neighbors, and coworkers about climate change, and encourage them to take the actions described in “Reduce.”
  • Participate in community events and dialogs focusing on climate change.
  • Support community organizations that address climate change by donating money or your time as a volunteer.
  • Support businesses that address climate change by being more energy efficient, generating energy using renewable sources, greening their operations, contributing to the local economy, and engaging in the local community. Encourage businesses that are not already doing these things to become a part of growing movement for the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit.