Small Footprint - Green Event Planning

In today’s world the food on your plate travels an average of 1500 miles. Asparagus from Argentina, apples from New Zealand, and shrimp from Thailand are just a few examples. But there is a growing to look at our food in a whole new way - to eat close to home. It is time we explored the benefits and advantages of eating local foods , those grown or raised within about 100 to 200 miles of where you live.

Buying locally and suatainable produced foods help preserve the health of the land for future generations. Eating locally puts people back in touch with where their food comes from as well as building a stronger sense of community. Returning to a more whole-food diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes, which local foods tend to be, has numerous health benefits in warding off many ailments.

There is also the issue of food safety. Produce and animals raised on a smaller scale, by people you can actually meet on local farms, helps cut down on pathogens as well as reduces the opportunity for anyone to meddle with your food before it gets to you.

It has been determined that moving just one percent of consumer expenditures to purchasing local food products increases farmers’ income by five percent. But the “buy local” movement is struggling with how to responsibly distribute its products as the demand increases. Local farmers’ markets have radically multiplied as more people have discovered that locally grown food just tastes better!

How To Eat Locally

Visit you local food co-op and ask about the folks who supply their food and where it comes from.

Discover a farmers’ market in your area and shop there regularly.

Find out who your local producers are and pay them a visit.

Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm where you pay the grower up front to produce meat, produce or dairy for you to pick up on a regular basis.

Put in vegetable garden of your own and learn how to preserve the foods you grow. Perhaps barter some of your potatoes for someone else’s corn.

We have become a society that truly believes “bigger is Better” and “more” should be our goal. If we want to reduce our carbon footprint that sort of thinking needs to become history.

In the U.S.big houses are becoming the norm. Its time to ditch the McMansions. Oversize homes aren’t just architecturally offensive, they also require more energy to heat and cool as well as consume a greater amount of building materials. Many countries around the world have been practicing smaller living for decades living in vastly smaller average homes as well as pioneering green building practices. The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program measures a building’s planet-friendly factor based on five criteria:

Sustainable site development

Water savings

Energy Efficiency

Material selection

Indoor environmental quality

Residential energy use accounts for 16% of greenhouse-gas emissions. You need to begin thinking green at the blueprint stage so low-tech, pragmatic techniques will maximize your new home’s efficiency. You don’t need 24th century solutions to 18th century problems.

Small is beautiful, in our homes, our hobbies, our transportation, our entire lifestyle. We need to model our thinking and philosophy on the Buddhist thinking, Live simply, meditate often, consume less and think more. The planet will applaud you!

     We depend on nature. This is an obvious but profound statement. Nature provides us with all of our life-support systems, it is the very source of our lives and well-being. But since much of the world lives in cities and consume goods imported from all over the world we tend to view nature as merely a place for recreation or a collection of commodities there for our consumption.

      If we are to lessen our ecological footprint and live sustainably we have to be sure we use the essential products and processes of nature no more quickly than they can be renewed and we discharge wastes no more quickly than they can be absorbed. But as they stand today our current demands on nature are compromising humanity’s future well-being. Society still views nature as an expendable part of our economy. Our over-harvesting and waste generation reduce future productivity and may well lead to eco-system collapse.

     The ecological footprint is an accounting tool that allows us to estimate the resource consumption and waste requirements of a specific population or economy in terms of a corresponding productive land area. The economy is similar to a horse in a pasture. The horse and the economy need to consume resources which eventually will become waste and will have to leave the horse or the economy. So the question becomes how much pasture is necessary to support that horse, or economy, to produce all its feed and absorb all its waste? At our current standard of living if everybody lived like today’s North Americans, it would take at least two additional planet Earths to produce the resources, absorb the wastes, and otherwise maintain life-support. And still our ecological footprint keeps growing!

The United States is home to less than 5% of the world’s people, yet it produces 25% of the CO2 emissions on the planet. Human activity has greatly increased the quantity of nitrogen cycling through the biosphere, changed land use across the globe, and increased the atmospheric concentration of CO2 . Changes such as these threaten the diversity of life on earth and may endanger our very life-support systems.
Today, most of earth’s human population lives in cities and most of us have little direct contact with nature. More than ever before, though, the future of our species depends on how well we understand the relationships between organisms and the environment. In the process we then can examine the impact these organisms have on their environment or their “ecological footprint.”
There are a number of factors which directly effect the “human footprint.” Human activities since 1750 have played a significant roll by overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, thus retaining solar heat that would otherwise radiate away. This retained heat translates into the much discussed “climate change” that our planet is experiencing at an alarming rate. As the earth’s climate changes it will cause a reduction in biodiversity, changes in seasons, rainfall patterns, ocean currents, and other parts of the earth’s life-support systems.
Our footprint is also strongly felt on the destruction and fragmentation of habitats as humans occupy, consume and control more of the planet. All the ecosystems are under severe stress from human intrusion as well as land and waterborne pollution.
Modern agriculture also heavily contributes to our environmental footprint by promoting a massive decline in biodiversity. People have historically used over 7,000 plant species for food, now they are reduced to largely 20 species around the world. This same sort of reduction in genetic variability has taken place in the herds of cattle, sheep, and horses that humans raise.
In addition to the destruction and exploitation of habitats and the impact of agriculture, a variety of related human actions have further increased the measure of our footprint. These include over fishing, commercial hunting and poaching, predator and pest control, the sale of exotic pets and plants, and deliberate or accidental introduction of alien or non-native species into ecosystems.
With this in mind, the goal of every human being should be to work on ways to change or modify our lifestyle so as to consciously strive to have only a “small footprint” on the face of our planet.

An Event That:

• Supports local vendors , suppliers, products, services and buildings or experiences that are sensitive to environmental issues and work towards achieving greater efficiency and effectiveness in terms of energy and materials.
• Incorporates sustainable and renewable resources.
• Subscribes to the three R’s – Reduce, Recycle and Reuse.
• Strives for natural, wholesome local products thus promoting a strong community economy.

Environmentally-friendly events strive to lessen our impact on the planet and increase social awareness. It is the “Eco-Logical,” socially responsible answer in today’s sustainable- challenged world.

For more information on how Small Footprint can help you “Green Your Event” contact us.

“Let Your Event Be Your Gift To The Planet”