Question, Research, Experiment, Measure

Reducing footprints is hard, especially because a lot of the information, criteria and end results are hard to know, or unknowable.

You can measure things that are at-hand – such as your own electricity consumption-, via sensors, meters, or even subjective gut-feel scoring, but you cannot really measure or quantify values such as the carbon footprint of your utility company, and you cannot verify yourself the business practices of Phillips’ suppliers in China other than by some google searches.

In any case, you want to take a fact-based approach to reducing your footprint.

Here is the cycle I’m going to be using throughout this blog:

 Question

Asking what should change, why and how.

Research

Finding out information first hand, through the Internet, or from experts.

Experiment

Try stuff out in deliberate ways.

Measure

See if what you tried changed anything.

Hopefully by separating these thinking areas the whole effort of reducing the footprint becomes more approachable.