Make a New Year's Resolution to Green Your Life in 12 Months

Food

Instead of having lunch delivered to your office, walk to a nearby restaurant and save take-out containers by dining in. Or bring your own container to the restaurant and have it filled there. At the very least, bring a set of your own silverware and a bottle of your favorite condiment to the office so you can skip the plastic utensils and the little packets of salt, pepper, ketchup and soy sauce.

Transportation

Start making a note of each car trip you take. "Changing your car habits is one of the most dramatic ways to reduce your environmental impact, "says Jodi Helmer, author of The Green Year: 365 Small Things You Can Do to Make a Big Difference.

Energy

Get a baseline of your current carbon footprint using the reliable online calculators at either safeclimate.com or lowimpactliving.com. Set a goal fo how much you'd like to reduce your impact over the coming year--10 percent is a good start.
To make it more fun, find a group of friends to compete with. Send them and email inviting them to join the year long challenge.

Everyday Purchases

Buy a calendar and a notebook made out of a recycled paper so you can track your consumption throughout the year. In the coming months, you'll be noting each of the following on your calendar:

*the highest and lowest temperatures at which you set your thermostat each day
*the number of kilowatt hours of electricity your household uses each month (it should be on your bill)
*the quantity of fuel you buy for home heating each month, whether it's natural gas or oil
*how many gallons you buy at each trip to the gas station

In the notebook, create tally pages for car trips, trips made by public transportation, and self-powered (walking, biking, etc.) trips. Another page can be for waste, especially if your're going to compare your progress with friends and neighbors. Divide this page into "recycled" and "not recycled" columns, and tally the things you dispose of and the things you recycle--plastic bags, drink containers, etc.--week by week.

Food

Over the next year, your goal is to educate yourself from food--where it comes from, how it's packaged and transported, and what happens to the waste--so you can make better choices for every meal.

This week, start at the end: Research your composting options. Throwing food scraps in the garbage may seem harmless, but decomposing food not only clogs landfills, it also releases methane--a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And encasing food scraps in a plastic bag or landfill keeps fruits and vegetables from replenishing the soil.

Transportation

Vow to take two fewer car trips over the next seven days, replacing them with walking, biking, or public transportation. Keep tracking each car trip in your notebook, and start writing down how many gallons of gas you're buying each time you fill up. And for each cart trip you do without, note any other benefits you reap beyond saving gas--such as fresh air, exercise, community interaction or reading time--so you can see the full spectrum of ways that driving less impacts your daily life.

Energy

Schedule an energy audit to get a list of suggestions for reducing your home's energy use. You can get a free audit from your local utility. This is the best choice if you rent since their suggestions tend to be smaller scale projects, like weatherstripping. Or you can get an assessment from an energy professional. The second choice is better if you own your home, since they specialize in large projects such as helping you choose efficient heating and cooling systems.

A professional assessment can run $300 to $500, but will likely pay for itself in energy savings if you end up making a major improvement. To find a certified building energy rater, visit resnet.org. "An energy audit will help you focus on the top one or two purchases that will have the biggest impact on your home energy use, "says Josh Dorfman, author of The Lazy Environmentalist: Your Guide to Easy, Stylish, Green Living.

Open a savings account devoted to green home improvements. Look at your budget and see what you can set aside toward a new efficient appliance, hot water heater or furnace. Even if it takes time to get there, it pays off in the long run.

Everyday Purchases

Create your own personal "Going Green" kit. Small purchases that can add up to a big impact include:

* reusable tote bags
* stainless steel water bottle
* travel coffee mug
* bring your own lunch supplies--an insulated carrier, utensils and wax paper or aluminum foil (instead of plastic wrap)
* compact fluorescent light bulbs

Buy Green Guide Magazine for U.S. Delivery

Food

Switch one staple of your diet from conventional to organic: eggs this month, milk the next. For the greatest impact, choose something you buy all the time, not something that's an occasional purchase, and don't challenge your budget by going all organic at once.

Also, this month, find a farmer's market near you where you can start buying food that's produced within a few hundred miles of your home, further reducing the carbon footprint of your diet by requiring less fuel for transport.

Transportation

Strategize and commit to a green commute one day a week. Either clear it with your boss to work from home, or carpool, take public transportation, walk, or ride your bike to your office.

Buy an air pressure gauge and make a monthly habit of checking the air pressure in your tires. Properly filled tires increase gas mileage by about 3 percent. The best time to check your tires is in the morning when the tires are cold.

Energy

Set aside a weekend "green the house" day. Enlist the help of your fellow household members to tackle the simplest suggestions from your energy audit, such as wrapping your hot water heater or installing a programmable thermostat.

Everyday Purchases

As you use up conventional products, replace them with more environmentally friendly options--household cleansers that use essential oils for fragrance, laundry detergents formulated for cold water, cloth napkins to replace disposable ones.

Besides saving on trash and chemicals, you will send a message to manufacturers to produce more environmentally friendly products. "When you vote with your dollars, corporations listen,"--Trish Riley, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Living.

Food

Audit your grocery cart each time you shop, assessing whether you're choosing products with less packaging, buying only food that you know that you'll eat, and selecting foods that were grown in healthy ways.

Close the loop on your composted scraps and reap the benefits of the soil you're helping to replenish by planting a small garden.

Transportation

Analyze your gas usage trends to see how much your recordkeeping has changed your consumption. Put the money you saved into your green savings account.




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Energy

Check your green bank balance and see if you're ready for a larger purchase--a more efficient refrigerator or a tankless water heater.

Everyday Purchases

Gather the friends who embarked on the green year challenge with you and have them bring their notebooks along. Whoever consumed the least or reduced their carbon footprint the most should win a case of organic wine.

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