In 2017, I started a new project: quantifying my personal impact on the environment. This will be a particularly interesting year to undertake this project, since I will be graduating college and starting work as a full time engineer. Thus, I can investigate and compare the impacts associated with dorm vs. apartment life, walking to classes vs. commuting to work, dorm food prepared in mass quantities vs. individual servings prepared at home, etc. Also, I will be traveling quite a bit this year, giving me the opportunity to explore transportation via car, truck, bus, train, boat, and plane.

My goal for the first year, 2017, is not necessarily to calculate my footprint with 100% accuracy, but rather to set up a solid framework that will allow me to do that in the future, starting with carbon and water footprints. Perhaps more importantly, this project is an opportunity to bring environmental impact to the forefront of my lifestyle choices and ultimately allow me to lead a more sustainable life.

Long-term goals for this project are to more accurately quantify my personal environmental impacts, generalize this framework so it can be used by more people, and perhaps work to create an app or similar platform that would allow average consumers to easily track their own footprints.

I aim to attack this project in week-long chunks, and update a blog after each week. Find all of the posts here!