Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
Be the Evolution... Sage - the New GreenEvolution Sage is one of the worldʻs first carbon offsetting groups reducing global warming pollution through the sale of locally-generated offsets for projects, organizations and households via energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions. There are many offset programs that depend on geographically removed, inefficient solutions that are tied to the grid like wind or solar farms in the southwestern deserts or unproven techniques in forestry and agriculture. However, Evolution Sage programs are locally based to bring things closer to home. The programs directly benefit local individuals, projects and organizations; first by using less energy and then by using renewable energy. We encourage that the money saved by the implemented clean energy solutions be used to support additional sustainability-oriented investments.
Our Approach:
Often carbon-offsetting only involves measuring and reducing global warming pollution, but we wanted to take it further by more tangibly helping change the energy culture. To follow is an overview of the innovative process we go through to help address the global warming and energy challenges.
1) Measure Carbon Footprint
Evolution Sage provides easy & affordable, local solutions to help Hawaii become more energy self-reliant. Our carbon footprinting approach offers the highest level of accuracy and comprehensiveness available today. Part of our approach uses highly detailed economic data gathered by the government to allocate emissions across the entire economy. This is the most comprehensive, conservative and accurate way of calculating the impacts of global warming pollution. The other technique is a detailed, bottom-up look at the energy use and global warming pollution emitted for products and services, including the materials and packaging, mining and manufacturing, transportation, disposal and other factors. The disadvantages of this approach are that a lot of the needed data is not available or carries errors. Itʻs also impossible to decide where to stop calculating, so we focus on quantifying the major emissions sources like:
- air travel
- local road transportation
- energy consumed by the event venue, household and/or organization
- energy used through stays at local hotels or homes
... some smaller emission sources include:
- vendor transportation for goods and services
- energy consumed by vendors
- material use (i.e. paper)
- waste generation
2) Offset Emissions
Carbon offsets can be used to minimize the impacts of emissions from air travel, energy use, vehicle use, etc. The best way to offset is to reduce consumption by identifying energy efficiency solutions with the greatest Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) - i.e. LED bulbs, low flow showerheads and faucet aerators. (Lighting and water heaters, on average, accounts for nearly 50% of a households energy consumption if not more. LED bulbs are 90% more efficient than incandescent bulbs, last 50 times longer and contain no toxic lead or mercury. Low flow showerheads and faucet aerators save as much as 50% of the normal water consumed, which creates additional electricity savings due to having to heat only half as much cold water.)
3) Be the Evolution in Our Energy Culture
We recognize that we are currently borrowing from our childrenʻs future and are committed to helping facilitate community betterment so people and the planet may live prosperously in natural balance for generations to come. While brainstorming to figure out the best place to begin, it became apparent to us all that the children are the future, so we should begin with them! Thatʻs why we decided to start working with students and teachers to integrate energy and water conservation practices through hands-on, real world learning exercises. Students will submit a "Be the Evolution Essay" via our website and explain what the energy, water and money saved means to them, their family, their community and their world. The essays are graded and rated by the studentsʻ teachers. The best essays win a partial energy and water efficiency retrofit for their homes.
4) Benchmark Resource Use, Monitor Changes, Share Lessons Learned
The winning students will trade their incandescent lightbulbs for LED bulbs and their showerheads and faucet aerators for low-flow versions. Over the next year, the students will track the difference in energy and water consumption from the previous year to determine how much energy, water and money their family is saving. From the energy reduction retrofits alone, each household should save nearly $300/yr for over 20 years. The families will pledge to use those savings to further support the studentʻs education or use it for more sustainability-oriented solutions. The family that has saved the most energy will also win a scholarship for their child.
Programs
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