Ecological Foot Print Calculation

After recalculating my ecological footprint appears to have shrunk by 1.1 planets from the original 4.5 to a current 3.4 (see pictures below).

New Ecological Footprint

Old Ecological Footprint

At the start of this experiment I wasn't sure that my action steps would have a big impact. I committed to:

1. Eat meat at two meals per week.
2. Limit non-carpool driving trips to 15 miles per week.
3. Go two days a week with-out purchasing products that use packaging or purchasing only products that contain at-least 80% recycled materials.
4. Three nights a week actively pursue unplugging all unnecessary electronic devices when not in use. *New objective as of 4/26.

However by sticking to these commitments I made a lot of progress, as the recalculations display above. Going forward I do believe I will be able to maintain these practices because the whole process showed me that you really don't have to sacrifice much. Sticking to these actions just requires a little more thinking and planning. At times it was difficult to maintain my commitment, such as when presented with a free meal that contained meat after I had filled my quote. But because these little steps go a long way I plan to keep up my commitments. When circumstances call for me to break my commitments I will work to reverse any of the adverse effects and make sure to get back to my commitments as soon as possible. All in all I am rather impressed that reducing my meat consumption, focusing on car pooling, unplugging electronics, and reducing my consumption has had such a large effect on my ecological footprint.