Our new (carbon) shoe size

Ready, set, go! Kindermusik is going green. Not in the what-can-we-do-to-make-ourselves-look-green way, but really, truly, in the it’s-time-we-took-a-good-hard-look-at-our-impact-and-did-something-about-it way.

Kindermusik has such a positive impact on the planet in so many ways—giving parents and children the tools to connect, giving children the opportunity to grow and explore . . . but in the meantime, we run an office with lights, computers, hand soap, and paper; we ship boxes of instruments around the world; most of our employees drive to work five days a week . . . if only we could know for sure that it would all balance out to a net positive.

First step? Doing the math. We’ve just completed gathering data for our first-ever “carbon footprint”. Might not seem like a big step, but it is. Think about your own carbon footprint for a minute—the amount of CO2 (carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas) you produce in the course of a year through traveling by car, bus, train, and plane; through the electricity you use; through the things you send and receive by mail; through the products you purchase (including food) that have been shipped overseas or across the country, etc. It may be a bigger “shoe size” than you’d like to think about, or it may seem silly to calculate it if there’s nothing you can do about it...

But quantifying is the first step towards solving. The whole point of calculating these numbers, of course, is to change them. And when you really think about it, changing them isn’t actually all that hard.

At Kindermusik, now that we know that our headquarters used about 282,000 kilowatt hours of electricity last year, for instance, and our employees drove more than 12,000 miles just getting to and from work, it’s time to get to work. We can’t wait to tell you about our progress.

Calculate your own carbon footprint!
There are lots of “carbon calculators” online – just search “carbon footprint” and you’ll get thousands of hits. Here’s a good one created by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

EPA's Carbon Calculator

And if you’re really interested . . .
Here’s an interesting article on carbon footprinting consumer products (cars, shoes, laundry detergent jackets, milk, beer):

Wall Street Journal article