Introduction

“Carbon footprint” or “environmental footprint”, there are calculators on the web.

When I was younger and as I was apprehending these tools, I wanted to tackle the subject.
I was then persuaded I got out of it pretty well. I was a vegetarian, had a low, second-hand consumption, had no fridge or washing machine, no car for years, lived in small accommodations, and so on..., thus I told myself it would be a mere formality to pass this test.

And yet... My score showed me how much everything was doomed! Even with a lot of efforts on my part, nothing made the difference. The basic tool is certainly questionable, some parameters are clearly absent, or we can be attributed indirect indexes that are of government services, of management or production services with a lot of potential paths of improvement and that do not depend on our own actions...

But anyway, even if we try to find the most convincing combinations, these online tools do show us that nothing makes any difference, we are screwed, yes...screwed!!!

But are there any other angles to these tools? Everything which can be hold against us is counted, but does it take into account what is in our favour?

Negative, neutral and positive impact

Negative impact

The human being’s negative impact can be calculated in various ways. The more holistic the vision is, the best for us it iswe have seen it previously.

Most of the time, tools such as the life cycle analysis (we discussed it in the series of 5 videos hereunder), only allow us to limit the damage on the environment.

The purpose of the life cycle analysis very rarely is to achieve, in practice, a resilience, an environmental pressure which is “bearable”, even a neutral or positive impact of the environment.

Neutral impact

I’m not talking of carbon neutrality... Even compensations (carbon or other) very often only do limit the negative impact. Indeed, if we plant trees to make up for the material extracted from the soil, they are are none the less more present in the soil, and the ecosystem surrounding the extraction remains degraded.

Yet, there can be a neutral impact, as we have seen in 3 R, 5 R, 7 R, who can do better?

Indeed, the refusal to consume certain things makes a neutral impact out of them.

On a local scale, a neutral impact is worth considering (for a garden’s production without any intrants and reusing seeds for example. Or with local wooden furniture or with the use of passive energies...). In this case, a global thinking of our activity is necessary to reach a neutrality.

For neutrality, we could also talk of certain tribes who live harmoniously with their environments, without any external intervention. But they become scarce...

Positive impact

So, can we have a positive impact on the environment?
Of course it’s possible! Well, finally some good news! We need to figure out how...

We will only quote specific actions, here. Admittedly, the impact depends on the scope of the study, but if we start by just seeing actions, this is the beginning of something!

Here are some potential actions:

• We have previously seen the restorative management of a place,
• welcoming wildlife, where it disappears,
• Compost, which, if well managed, can generate humus to help regenerate the soils,
• The depollution of the environment (air, land and water), more specifically with natural means: bacteria, micro-organisms, insects, plants (phytoremedy), mushrooms, (mycoremedy), seaweed (phycoremedy),...
• the use of waste as raw materials, repairing an object which would have been thrown away, reconditioning an any other form which prevent the extraction of material.
• A passive building, which includes its environment to manage its waste as ressources and which manages other resources in a sustainable way,
• De-concentration of an organic pollutant which becomes a resource,
• ...

So, sure, we should not put the systemic thinking aside. Coherence must be total! But the good news is that, the human being having a positive impact, possible it is!