Since 1954
The power of community
Since 1954
The power of community
We put this page together for you to use as a resource for finding ways to reduce your carbon footprint. From how you get around to how you heat your home and what you eat, we’ll provide tips on how to go easier on our beautiful planet in three critical areas:
In 2023, transportation was the largest single source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 29% of the nation’s total. More than half of transportation emissions, ~57%, came from personal vehicles such as cars, pickup trucks and motorcycles.
Gas-powered vehicles have been Americans’ primary mode of transportation for decades. The problem is that a typical gas-powered car emits nearly 5 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.
To put that in perspective, it takes 5 acres of U.S. forest a full year to absorb that much CO₂ and keep it from accumulating in the atmosphere, trapping heat, and contributing to global warming. Multiply that across the 1.5 billion vehicles on the road worldwide, and the climate impact becomes staggering.
Climate change isn’t the only concern with gas-powered cars. They also release pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can hurt your health.
Being exposed to these pollutants can make you cough, wheeze, and develop asthma or bronchitis. It can also irritate your eyes, nose and throat. Some VOCs can also damage your nervous system or increase your risk of cancer.
That’s a lot of bad news to absorb, we know (sorry, pun intended). The good news is there are many ways to reduce the transportation emissions that you produce, or eliminate them altogether.
Getting from place to place is a necessary part of everyday life, and for many of us, driving and sometimes flying are unavoidable. But making small shifts in how you get around can add up, often with added benefits for your health, your wallet and your quality of life.
RIDE YOUR BIKE. We know biking isn’t practical for every trip. Your workplace may be too far away, you may need to transport kids, or you may simply not want to arrive at your destination sweaty. (Is there a gym in your office building where you can shower?)
But whenever feasible, and for shorter trips such as running errands and meeting friends, swapping your car for your bike really helps eliminate transportation emissions. And the benefits go beyond reducing your carbon footprint, including:
If distance, hills or exertion are barriers, consider using an e-bike to make more trips possible while still producing far fewer emissions than driving.
We’ll admit it: Biking is easier in some communities than others. Boulder, Colorado, for example, has an extensive network of bike lanes, paths and other infrastructure designed to make traveling on two wheels a practical option.
So do what you can, given where you live and where you need to go. The goal is to choose your bike whenever it’s a practical option.
RETHINK HOW YOU FLY. Flying is one of the most carbon-intensive ways to travel. Globally, aviation produces 1 billion metric tons of CO₂ a year, accounting for 2.5% of all CO₂ emissions. That may not sound like a lot, but most people in the world fly rarely if at all.
Flying less does significantly reduce emissions, which we saw during the pandemic.
For those who fly often, air travel can be one of the most carbon-intensive things they do. So if you have options, consider taking a train or bus instead, particularly for shorter trips. And when you do fly, consider making adjustments, including:
By choosing alternatives when practical and being more selective about your flights, you can reduce the carbon footprint of your travel while still having a great trip.
They’re also cheaper to operate. If you drive 12,000 miles a year (the official average in the U.S.), charging an EV at home instead of buying gas can save you $1,000 a year.
Other benefits include:
One drawback is that EV ownership can require more planning, especially on longer trips. While you may need to plan ahead for charging stops, those stops can often be paired with a meal, coffee break or other natural pause in your trip.
And charging is getting faster: Some high-speed public chargers can bring an EV to about 80% charge in as little as 20 minutes. Charging networks are continuing to expand as well, making long-distance travel increasingly manageable.
Try before you buy.Curious about going electric but not ready to buy? Consider renting an EV on your next trip. It’s an easy way to reduce your transportation emissions during travel while experiencing how an EV drives and getting a feel for charging before making a bigger commitment.
When you are ready to buy, remember to compare an EV’s total cost of ownership with a gas-powered model, not just the sticker price. For someone driving the average 12,000 miles a year, you can save $1,500 on fuel and maintenance costs alone.
State, local and utility incentives may bring the cost down further, so check what’s available where you live.
USE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Public transportation isn’t equally accessible everywhere, but it’s worth exploring what’s available where you live. That’s because taking a bus, train or subway instead of driving can significantly reduce your transportation emissions.
If you commute 20 miles a day, for example, switching to public transit can reduce your carbon footprint by an average of 2.2 metric tons, which is almost half the emissions produced by a typical gas-powered car in a year.
And there are other advantages, including:
Public transit does require working around routes and schedules. But apps such as Transit, Google Maps and Apple Maps can help you compare your options and plan trips.
And remember, you don’t have to give up your car completely. Start by looking for trips you make regularly that could just as easily be made by bus or train.
CARPOOL. Of the 140 million Americans who commute to work, 69% drive alone. That’s a lot of cars carrying just one person, which is why sharing those trips can make such a meaningful difference.
If every commuting vehicle in the U.S. carried just one additional passenger, American commuters could collectively save an estimated 33 million gallons of gas a day, or $100 million in fuel costs at typical gas prices.
At the same time, the reduction in CO₂ emissions would be equivalent to taking 20 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year. Carpooling has other benefits, including:
Keep in mind that you don’t have to carpool every day to make a difference. Start with one or two regular trips a week, such as when commuting to work, driving your kids to school, or going to an event with friends.
The next big slice of Boulder’s emissions pie comes from residential, commercial, and industrial energy usage. Residential greenhouse gas emissions contribute around 17% of Boulders total emissions, commercial/industrial emissions represent around 54%. Energy used in Boulder to heat and power buildings accounts for 71% of GHG emissions. These emissions from energy generation are a direct consequence of Xcel energy’s mostly non-renewable resource usage. As Xcel energy improves the energy grid by using more renewable options, Boulders emissions from residential and industrial energy uses will decrease. To learn more about Xcel Energy and the energy grid, check out our Local Government and Grid page.
In this section, we will talk about the areas of peoples homes that use the most energy and increase emissions. Even though industrial/commercial emissions are much higher than residential, the average person cannot do much to affect those emissions, but everyone can work to reduce the emissions from their home.
For the average household, around 45% of your energy bill comes from space heating. Over 50% of the energy needed to heat your house comes from natural gas and all together, heating your house contributes over 32 metric tons of CO2 equivalent each year (112,913 bathtubs of CO2). The statistic that might hit home the hardest is the average U.S. household spends around $700 per year to heat their home using natural gas.
People will always need continue heating their houses and until the grid improves, emissions from home heating will never hit zero, but inefficient practices often lead to over usage of heating and an increase on the energy bill. Each degree of heating on a thermostat contributes more towards your emissions and your energy bill than you probably realize. Often times, simply being conscious about how much heating you are using is the best way to reduce your usage. Activities such as heating rooms that you are not using (the basement is a common culprit), leaving the windows open at night, closing the drapes on a sunny day, often contribute significantly towards heating your home unnecessarily.
Water heating is the second largest greenhouse gas generator for the average household. The average house contributes around 0.41 metric tons of CO2 equivalent (1421 bathtubs of CO2) to the atmosphere from water heating each year. This adds up to annual spending of around $500 each year.
The main cause of high emissions from water heating is typically just an old or inefficient water heater. The average water heater lasts around 8-12 years, it is common for homeowners to not realize they are overdue for a new one and continue using an old, inefficient water heater. We urge people not only to check if they are due for a replacement, but also to shop around for the best, most efficient fit for their home. Try using some of these resources to help find the best option, we recommend a solar water heater to avoid reliance on the grid as much as possible:
The final major source of home energy usage comes from home cooling using air conditioning. Cooling only accounts for around 6% of home energy usage, significantly less than heating. Typically, the biggest reason that households have high emissions from their air conditioning is simply because they have a low efficiency air conditioner. You can reduce air conditioning energy use by 20-50% simply by switching to a high efficiency air conditioner.
The most important thing you can do to ensure that your current air conditioner is working efficiently is to regularly clean and replace the filters. If left uncleaned, this can also be a fire hazard. Other tips to improve efficiency include opening the windows instead of using the AC, make sure to not do both at the same time as this can waste even more energy. Make sure that your house is insulated properly, this means all doors and windows are sealed when shut, most importantly the attic and basement. Additionally, be sure to only cool the rooms of your home that you are using, the top floors of the house naturally get hotter and take more energy to cool, if you are not upstairs, don’t cool it, this will save you money as well.
Below is a list of the best ways to reduce your home energy usage. This is one of the areas of energy usage where most people have the most control of their activities. As is the case in other areas, the main thing that you can do to keep your home energy usage low is simply just to be conscious.
Food production, and especially animal agriculture, has a significant impact on our planet. Livestock production in the US generates about 5% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and its methods are some of the most inhumane in the world.
Much of livestock’s climate impact comes from methane produced during digestion by cows, sheep, goats and other livestock, along with methane and nitrous oxide released from their manure.
But climate change is only part of the story. Food production also affects water quality, forests, wildlife and biodiversity. And common forms of intensive animal agriculture violate animal welfare and the health and safety of people who work on factory farms and in slaughterhouses and meat-processing facilities.
The good news is that you don’t have to completely overhaul your diet to make a difference. By paying attention to what you eat, where it comes from and how it was produced, you can make choices that reduce your impact on people, animals and the planet.
Here’s the biggest food production problems and ways that you can help:
Most of the beef, pork, chicken, dairy and eggs sold in the U.S. come from large-scale livestock operations called concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, also known as factory farms.
The EPA defines CAFOs as facilities where animals are confined for at least 45 days during a 12-month period in pens, barns or feedlots where there is little to no vegetation. Large CAFOs have over 1,000 beef cattle, 700 dairy cows, 2,500 large pigs or 125,000 chickens.
Although producing food on this scale keeps prices low, concentrating thousands of animals in one location is cruel, and concentrates the waste, emissions and potential risks to nearby air, water and communities.
CAFOs produce enormous amounts of manure in a relatively small area. On smaller farms, manure can be spread on fields and used as fertilizer. But when thousands of animals are confined in one place, the volume of waste exceeds what nearby land can safely absorb.
That manure contains nitrogen and phosphorus, along with bacteria, hormones, antibiotics and other contaminants. When manure leaks from storage areas or is washed off fields by rain after being used as fertilizer, those pollutants enter rivers, lakes and groundwater.
Too much nitrogen and phosphorus cause algae blooms that deplete oxygen in the water, harming fish and other wildlife. Polluted water can also contaminate drinking-water sources and expose people and wildlife to harmful bacteria.
Cows, sheep, goats, buffalo and other grazing animals release methane as part of their normal digestive process, known as enteric fermentation. That process accounts for 33% of U.S. agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, while manure management accounts for another 11%. Beef cattle were the largest source of these emissions, followed by dairy cattle and pigs.
Keeping large numbers of animals in tight spaces means they have little room to move, graze, nest or socialize in natural ways, and many never see the light of day. Most are mutilated in some way for confinement purposes or to increase economic efficiency. These highly stressful and unnatural conditions result in distress, disease and injury typically untreated by individual veterinary care.
There are currently no federal animal welfare laws that protect the rights of animals in CAFOs. Yet 99% of chickens, pigs, turkeys, and 75% of cattle in the US are confined in CAFOs for some or all of their lives before slaughter. Birds face extra suffering in processing plants, where legal protections are aimed more at consumer safety than animal welfare.
Meat and poultry processing is dangerous work. Employees use sharp knives and heavy machinery, perform the same motions for hours at a time and work quickly to keep up with fast-moving production lines. These conditions can lead to cuts, falls, repetitive-motion injuries and other serious accidents. Workers may also be exposed to chemicals used to clean and disinfect processing equipment. And studies from the National Institutes of Health have found very high rates of perpetration-induced traumatic stress, or PITS, alongside depression and anxiety among factory farm and slaughterhouse workers.
The risks are significant enough that federal law prohibits minors from working in slaughterhouses and meat-packing facilities. Despite those protections, recent Department of Labor investigations have found children illegally working at these plants.
You don’t have to become vegetarian to make a difference. A few thoughtful choices about what you buy, how often you eat certain foods and where your food comes from can reduce the environmental impact of your diet, starting with these three steps:
Learn what food labels actually mean and vote with your dollars. Standing in front of a grocery-store meat case can feel like decoding another language: natural, free range, pasture raised, organic, grass fed, humanely raised.
The tricky part is that some of these labels mean a lot more than others. Some are backed by clear rules and outside verification. Others are pure marketing.
Look for certifications on animal welfare that are verified by an independent organization. For example, a producer whose farm meets A Greener World’s standards can display the “Certified Animal Welfare Approved” seal on its meat. A Greener World requires animals to be raised on pasture or range and audits participating farms every year.
The USDA Organic label also comes with specific rules, including organic feed, limits on antibiotics and hormones, outdoor access and pasture requirements for grazing animals.
Cure Organic Farm is a diversified organic farm with vegetables, flowers, eggs and meat, along with a farm stand and CSA program. The farm rotationally grazes its laying hens and ducks and offers educational tours focused on organic and sustainable farming.
Black Cat Farm Store sells food from Black Cat’s diversified organic farm, including seasonal produce and pasture-raised meats, with farm-to-table meals served at their farm restaurant and at Bramble & Hare downtown.
Dharma’s Garden is a nonprofit community farm offering educational workshops, community events and land stewardship classes right in the heart of the city.
Light Root Community Farm uses rotational grazing, composting and draft-horse-powered farming, and operates a grass-fed dairy herd-share program along with educational programs.
Around the world, 38% of monitored fish stocks (fish populations, such as cod, salmon or tuna that scientists track over time) are being overfished, meaning fish are being caught faster than their populations can recover. The U.S. is doing better: 94% of federally managed fish stocks were not being overfished in 2023.
Another major problem is bycatch, which happens when fishing boats accidentally kill sea life they weren’t trying to catch. Whales, dolphins, sea turtles, seabirds and sharks can all get trapped in nets or tangled in fishing gear. About 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die this way each year.
Eating fish and other seafood may seem like a more climate-friendly choice than beef or chicken, but some types can carry a surprisingly high carbon footprint. The amount of greenhouse gas emissions depends a lot on the species and how it was caught or farmed.
For wild-caught seafood, most emissions come from the fuel used by fishing boats. Farmed seafood creates emissions in different ways, including the energy used to run the farm and food production for the fish.
So “wild-caught” doesn’t automatically mean it’s better for the planet, and “farmed” does not automatically mean worse. The species, fishing method, and farming practices all matter.
Seafood choices can be confusing, and the environmental impact can vary widely depending on the species, where it came from and how it was caught or farmed. A few thoughtful choices can make a difference, starting with these three steps:
Palm oil is one of the most widely used vegetable oils in the world. It shows up in everything from cookies, crackers and ice cream to shampoo, lipstick and cleaning products.
The problem is where and how much of it is grown. Expanding palm oil plantations have been clearing tropical forests, particularly in Southeast Asia. That destroys habitat for animals such as orangutans, elephants and tigers and releases carbon stored in trees and soil.
Palm oil production has also been linked to concerns about worker safety, low wages, forced labor and child labor in some producing regions.
But simply avoiding palm oil isn’t always better for the planet. Oil palm trees produce much more oil on the same amount of land than crops such as soybeans or sunflowers. Replacing palm oil with those oils could require more farmland and simply shift deforestation somewhere else.
You probably won’t eliminate palm oil from everything you buy, but paying more attention to how it was produced and which products you choose can definitely help, starting with these three steps:
Check the label. Palm oil is found in a surprising number of packaged foods, cosmetics and household products, so you may already be buying it without realizing it. Look for “palm oil” or “palm kernel oil” on the ingredient list, or one of its many chemically processed derivatives (see graphic below).
If a product contains palm oil, look for evidence that it was produced more sustainably, such as an RSPO certification seal on the package or the company’s website.
Food miles measure how far food travels from where it is grown or produced to where it is eaten. Moving food by truck, train, ship or plane requires energy and produces greenhouse gas emissions.
Today, food and ingredients often travel long distances before reaching your plate. A single packaged product may contain ingredients grown in several different countries, then shipped somewhere else for processing, packaging and sale. Transportation of food accounts for about 5.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
But how food travels matters too. Shipping food by air produces about 50 times more greenhouse gas emissions than transporting it by sea. Highly perishable products that need to reach stores quickly, such as berries, asparagus and green beans, are more likely to travel by air when they are imported from far away.
You don’t have to know exactly how many miles every item in your grocery cart traveled, but paying more attention to where your food comes from, what’s in season and how much processing it requires can help reduce your carbon footprint, starting with these three steps:
If you have the space, you can also grow some of your own food. Even harvesting a few herbs, tomatoes or greens can cut their farm-to-table trip from miles to footsteps.
Cure Organic Farm: 7416 Valmont Road, Boulder, CO 80301