Reduce your footprint, reduce your costs

Next Wednesday, 22 April 2015, will be Earth Day, a day that aims to raise global awareness about environmental issues. Have you ever wondered how much impact your lifestyle has on the planet? The Earth Day organisers have designed a nifty footprint calculator that measures how your activities and consumption habits affect the environment and what you can do to make your footprint smaller.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), "Australia has one of the world's largest ecological footprints per capita... If the rest of the world lived like we do in Australia, we’d need the regenerative capacity of 3.6 Earths to sustain our demands on nature."

The great news is that the steps we take to reduce consumption and emissions usually also result in cost savings. The average household spends (source: Moneysmart.gov.au):

• $44 a week on clothing and footwear
• $59 a week on household furniture and appliances
• $33 a week on fuel and power
• $234 on transport

If the average household reduced these costs by just five per cent, the annual saving would add up to over $7.7 billion and our reduced footprint would relieve pressure on the planet.