6 tips to reduce your carbon emissions before your vacation

After receiving the Environmental Leadership Certificate last November, we've been on the lookout for ways to save electricity, fuel oil and water but didn't spend a whole lot of time thinking of ways to save on gas. Because the grocery store here is less than 2 miles away, it isn't a big deal for us to stop on the way home from a doctor's appointment or other 'day out' and pick up what we need.

Heck, my friend Jacqueline (of Jacqueline's Tea Room fame) and I walk to the grocery store almost every afternoon. So, I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about driving.

Tonight I got to thinking of ways to save on carbon emissions in preparation for vacation travel this year. Lots of people, ourselves included, haven't bought into the whole carbon offsets idea where you buy your way out of actually DOING anything to offset your actual carbon emissions.

So, on our website I have a page showing what we've done in the past year to earn the Environmental Leadership Certificate and I added a section on how to 'offset' vacation travel.

I hope you'll take a look and try at least one of the options. Personally, I only drive about once/week. If I can't walk to wherever it is I want to go, I seriously consider if I really need to go there. I just realized I've had my car for 5 years this summer and it has 30,000 miles on it. Total.

Obviously, not everyone lives in the situation I do where I can walk to work (10 feet) and to shopping (a couple of hundred feet) and to the post office, church, library and pretty much anything else I want. But there are ways we can all get healthier, lose weight, feel better and save a little corner of the planet at the same time. Hope you'll read the webpage and we'll get to talk about it when we see you this year!


If you're in the area at the end of March and into April, we hope you'll take the opportunity to tour a LEED certified house in Freeport. Tours will be held Wednesday- Sunday and different speakers will be on hand during the week to explain how the house was constructed and other aspects of LEED certification.