My favorite boss once told me I need “Walkin’ Around Knowledge.” By which he meant, if I were to happen upon a senior executive in the break room or in the elevator, I should be able to quickly calculate the implications of a particular business opportunity or strategy. Every now and then we would review which Walkin’ Around Knowledge needed to be in our pocket at any given moment.
For example, imagine the CEO and I board the elevator on the 11th floor, heading down to the parking lot at the end of the day, and she says “I’m negotiating a deal with an advertiser to run banner ads on our fabulously impressive mobile application. I think they are willing to invest $100,000 over 5 months. How many impressions will we need to give them, and are there enough?”
I try not to look flustered as I remember my rules of thumb in our business: $1 per thousand impressions more or less, and this app generates 10 million impressions per month. So, I need 100 million impressions to deliver at that financial rate.
I reply casually, “We could do it over 10 months if we were willing to sell all our impressions on our fabulously impressive app, or we could deliver in 5 months if we include our other fabulously impressive app in the deal.” And… scene.
It was a great lesson and it made me look good more than once. But I now wonder how I can apply it to my carbon footprint. I believe this kind of “Walkin’ Around Knowledge” can help us make decisions that manage our carbon footprint.
Here is an example: What is the carbon footprint of driving to and from church each Sunday? Or downtown for a concert? Or to the gym each day? What if someone asks you and you need a quick answer?
So to seem impressive with a quick response, you would break this into two parts: One is a multiplier that you work out beforehand, and the other is the distance that varies with each kind of round trip. All you have to do on the spot is remember the multiplier and multiply by distance.
So, my multiplier: my hybrid gets 40 miles per gallon and every gallon of gas produces 20 pounds of CO2. So every mile driven produces .5 pounds of CO2. I’m fortunate this rounds so nicely, but if yours does not, feel free to round it. Remember the goal is not to be perfectly accurate, but rather to sound like you know what you’re talking about, and rely on a rule of thumb.
Next, come up with distances. Of course, the best way to do this is to go out to google maps and plot your path. For me, the distance to church is about 14 miles. Downtown to our favorite concert spot is 23 miles. The gym is about 4 miles.
Putting it all together for me is easy because half a pound of CO2 per mile and a round trip cancel each other out, so all I have to do is know the distance one way. 14 pounds of CO2 to go to church, 23 pounds of CO2 downtown, 4 pounds of CO2 to the gym.
Next step is to put it all into context, for psychological reasons, both in terms of what you have done in the past to improve, and what you could do to improve in the future. For example, my spouse and I ride together to church even though we need to be there at slightly different times to fill different responsibilities. We drive downtown maybe once or twice a month for recreation rather than driving there every day for work (as I did in the past). We almost always go in my more fuel efficient car than her guzzler.
In the future, we can and should get a different and even more fuel efficient car. We should carpool to church. We should give her guzzler to NPR. I should join a closer gym or ride a bike.
Over time, LOT carbon accounts are intended to help you with various kinds of Walkin’ Around Knowledge. These will create context for mundane activities, and help you prioritize the biggest positive impacts for the least sacrifice. Then you can make incremental improvements over time.
