Is it possible to have NO IMPACT on the environment?

As part of my personal commitment to a greener way of doing things, I have decided this year to undertake a ‘no-impact challenge’. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to see how close I can get to having absolutely no impact on the environment.

This is not something I’ll be able to achieve overnight, so I’ll be documenting the process throughout the year – on this blog page, the Yes Solar Facebook page, and through our Twitter feed. I’d love you to follow my journey – along the way you might decide to join me, or you might just pick up some useful tips that you can apply piecemeal to your lifestyle. You may also have advice for me along the way, or an opinion on the approach that I choose to take.

I’ve identified three areas to divide my no-carbon challenge into. The first is Consumption & Waste – looking at everything that I buy, the carbon generated in manufacturing and distributing it, and the packaging that it comes with. The second category is Transport – how I get around, by car, scooter, bicycle, plane, train, bus or on foot. The third category is Electricity – how much electricity do I use in my home and my office, and where does that electricity come from?

I’m also going to use our instagram account to track all of my consumption and waste in a series of pictures, which I’ll tweet. This is going to be quite a cool accountability tracker for me, and will allow me to look back in a few months time and see what’s changed.

I’ve been inspired to take up this challenge by a book called No Impact Man, by Colin Beavan. He’s a New Yorker, living in a flat with his wife and young child, who decides to take on the challenge of living without having any impact on the environment. I’ll be sharing some of his ideas and stories along the way as well, but I encourage you to go and pick up a copy of the book if you’re interested.

Stay tuned, 2012 is going to be an interesting year!

Rich

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