The 21st Centrist and Environmental Salvation

Sex in the City is to the shoe market what environmentalists hope carbon footprints will be to the ecology - a giant leap in 21st Centrist sales on environmental salvation. Effective participation in the fight against global warming is all about universal participation. Even the General Services Administration (GSA) an independent agency of the United States government, has decided to lend a hand in carbon footprinting and environmental oversight.

Established in 1949, the GSA helps manage and support federal agency functioning in the United States; the GSA supplies products and communications for federal government offices, provides transportation and office space to their employees, and develops government-wide cost-reductive policy. With the mission statement:

"Help federal agencies better serve the public by offering, at best value, superior workplaces, expert solutions, acquisition services and management policies."

The GSA seems to be the most logical U.S. Agency to start the proverbial ball rolling for government-wide carbon footprinting. GSA's current Assistant Commissioner, Mr. John Johnson, stated in a recent Washington Technology interview, that the GSA's carbon footprint should review and reveal results of the following:

· information technology(IT)equipment and its relationship to carbon footprinting

· number of employees affecting carbon footprinting and their relational statistics, such as:

§ the energy they use

§ where employees live and how they get to work

§ modes of transportation employees use to travel to work

§ statistics of driving (i.e., alone or car pools or mass transit)

· As a result of the relational and quantitative carbon footprint analysis the GSA hopes to achieve:

§ a greater understanding of where the GSA is in terms of energy use and carbon emissions

§ how to align that data and understanding with strategic initiatives

§ business case measurements that proffer an enhanced employee telework capability

§ effective statistics to support IT infrastructure telecommuting as a wise investment that provides energy savings

§ a plan for employee compensation due to mass transit use if it is office carbon footprint reductive

Using telework as an example, carbon footprint analysis will produce information that can used to build the business case scenarios essential in the formulation and approval of infrastructural investment to ratchet up a telework paradigm. Mr. Johnson provided the example of contracting officers needing to access contract files. Stating that the GSA could digitize their files, develop applications to search and manipulate the files and then provide the Teleworker access. Security of proprietary data is an issue that poises a case for conflict resolution in this provision; however, the GSA is aware of appropriate security models to replicate to achieve a more fluid telework agenda.

In case you are unaware all the clamor over carbon footprinting is due to the representative effect that day-to-day activities have on the climate in terms of total greenhouse gases each of us produce. These are measured in carbon dioxide units and all of us have an individual measurement that either positively or negatively affects the planet. Lifestyle adjustments are called for in order to reduce our independent carbon footprints in order to lessen our negative effect on global warming and climate change acceleration.

Things like heat, light, power, refrigeration and transportation establish our carbon footprint. In order to learn what our personal measurement is we should use carbon calculators to determine our carbon shoe size. Everything that we do is powered by fossil fuels and equates to carbon dioxide cost. Over time this adds up and costs the environment. Other activities such as our consumption of things from livestock (responsible for 18% of global carbon emissions) to iPod's (energy used to produce and ship and charge the device) to our own automobile add to our own private carbon footprint.

While we can't achieve an actual number of our universal individual footprint, we can achieve an estimate. A number of websites offer carbon footprint analyses and questionnaires, as follows:

· Carbon Footprint, Carbon Footprint is an independent & completely management owned business that has been operational since 2005.

· Carbon Fund, Carbonfund.org is leading the fight against global climate change, making it easy and affordable for any individual, business or organization to eliminate their climate impact and hastening the transformation to a clean energy future.

· Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has a carbon calculator that not only sizes up your footprint, but also allows you to see how changing your behavior - like driving less - can reduce your impact.

· Nature Conservancy, which leads you through a detailed questionnaire on your home energy use, driving, flying and diet.

Carbon calculators are all different and establishing your carbon footprint is not an exact formula at this time; however, if you resource a few verities of calculator tools such as government agency, green group and company sponsors you can identify a qualitative estimate of your current state of affairs. As you become more aware of your own footprint - you can roll that over into your business development goals and initiatives. The old adage think locally act globally can apply to the work life as well, think independently act organizationally.