SAP's Carbon Exploration: Your Personal Green Scorecard for Green Living

Blog by Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner at Taiga Company
Apr 19, 2011 2:15 PM ET

Taiga Company blog by Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner at Taiga Compa…

How do you measure success is green living? 

Evidence points to the gap between awareness and action as the single largest opportunity for global sustainability progress.  While historical efforts have focused on expanding awareness, the recent explosion of information and global interest indicates that the “word is out” on most major issues.   The next step is closing the gap between knowledge and personal eco action.    Here's where the tried and true adage applies: "What gets measured, gets managed." While expressed more frequently in a business setting, it applies to our personal lives as well.  For instance, if you want to lose weight, first you have to know how much you weigh to benchmark your success.  Similarly, in living a sustainable lifestyle, you first need to know the areas of your environmental impacts to measure your success.   Let's start with carbon.   A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc.  The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases we individually produce and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent.    Your personal green scorecard starts with keeping track of how you generate carbon in your daily life.    How do we do that?  SAP's 2010 Sustainability report offers ways to get involved: in particular, the Carbon Exploration prototype. Click here to learn more about green living and managing your carbon footprint.  

Home to one third of the earth's trees, the Taiga is the largest land-based biosphere and encircles the globe. Its immense oxygen production literally changes the atmosphere and refreshes the planet. It is this continuous renewal that has shaped Taiga Company's vision to drive similar change in the business world. Taiga Company seeks to be the "oxygen for your business".