Rick Dubrow and Jeff Kraug are two Bellingham business owners who live two different lives.
Dubrow owns A-1 Builders, a construction company, and Kraug owns Naked Clothing, a hemp-made clothing business. Dubrow is 56 years old, married with three grown children, and lives in a small modern house. Kraug is 33, single, has no children, and lives in a three-story Victorian-style house with seven people.
While their differences are many, they have one ideal in common—both strive to live sustainably. How sustainable their lifestyles are depends on what sustainability means and how it is measured.
Sustainability implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, according to the United Nations Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development.
"Sustainability is taking full responsibility for your actions," said Seth Vidaña, campus sustainability coordinator for Western.
He also said while people use the word frequently, sustainability is difficult to define.
"We don’t really know what a sustainable society looks like," Vidaña said.
He said he thinks sustainability is a moving target, and what is sustainable today may not be tomorrow. The definition needs to be a collective vision with flexibility to adapt as society changes, he said.
In order to define sustainability, Earthday Network, which promotes environmental activism, developed the Ecological Footprint Quiz. The quiz consists of 14 multiple-choice questions measuring the amount of land needed to support an individual’s lifestyle. Questions about food, transportation, goods and housing choices are used to determine an individual’s "footprint" on the Earth in acres. The survey also calculates how many planet Earths would be needed if everyone lived in a similar way.
According to Earthday, approximately 4.5 acres of productive land exist for every person to live on. The typical American lifestyle requires 24 acres of land. If everyone lived like the average American, 5.3 planets would be needed.
While the United States is not the only industrialized nation with cars and electronics, it is the country with the largest impact per capita. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States uses one-third of the planet’s resources and accounts for one-quarter of its fossil fuel use, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Dubrow and Kraug both live in the United States, but what sets them apart from the average American is how both deliberately live in a way that reduces their ecological footprints.
Dubrow and his wife Cindi Landreth built a "green" home together. Their house is small, with only 1,300 square-feet, but surprisingly spacious. Landreth, who is the manager of Adaptations, A-1’s design division, designed the house. The couple used sustainably-harvested wood and bought salvaged lumber and other supplies from the ReStore, which sells reclaimed building materials.
Because of the home’s layout, a gas stove in the living room heats most of the house. Their hot-water tank heats water only as needed.
The exterior is made of Rastra, a cement-based expanded polystyrene made from 85 percent recycled material. They also built the roof to last by using tri-laminated shingles which have a lifetime warranty.
A leading characteristic of the home’s design is what Dubrow calls "dematerialization," which uses as few materials as possible while maintaining the quality of the home.
Outside, no grass lawn is to be found, but there are trees that Dubrow and Landreth intentionally left standing. Most builders clear a lot entirely before construction, Dubrow said.
His company promotes environmentally friendly building methods and received several awards for its own sustainable practices.
The couple lives comfortably and enjoys an urban setting while reducing their environmental impact.
In fact, according to Earthday Network, living in a city reduces an individual’s footprint. Dubrow deliberately built his home in a pre-existing neighborhood to avoid contributing to sprawl.
While Earthday considers living in a green-designed home important, the quiz considers other living situations. It also assesses how often a person consumes animal products, how much processed, packaged, and non-local food a person eats, the amount of waste a person generates, the number of people living in his or her house hold, and how often he or she uses alternative transportation. According to Dubrow’s quiz results, his lifestyle requires 9 acres of land. If everyone on Earth lived like Dubrow, about two planets would be needed. While this is less than the 5.3 planets needed for the average American, it is still one Earth too many.
Dubrow said he does not think society as a whole is shifting toward sustainability, but part of it is.
"The pace of the destructive lifestyle is outpacing the improvements for those moving toward sustainability," Dubrow said. "I think the net effect is we’re still going down."
According to Earthday, living with others increases population density, thereby reducing an individual’s footprint.
Kraug lives with seven people. He and his housemates share a fruit and vegetable garden, collect eggs from ducks, and prepare meals together. People know his house as "The Oasis."
By growing a garden and buying locally grown, unprocessed food, Kraug decreases the distance his food travels, further reducing his footprint. He also uses a worm bin to compost food scraps, which cuts down on food waste.
While Kraug’s lifestyle appears simpler than Dubrow’s, it still requires 11 acres of land. If everyone lived like Kraug, nearly 2.5 planet Earths would be needed.
Kraug said he feels the quiz is oversimplified. For example, he drives a truck but fuels it with bio-diesel, which reduces the amount of carbon dioxide it emits. He also uses his truck to haul solar hot-water tanks and clothes for his eco-friendly business.
"They set parameters that aren’t really applicable, and don’t take into account a lot of variables that are hard to quantify in multiple choice," Kraug said.
Dubrow said although the quiz is not perfect, he has not found a better model for measuring sustainability. Even though A-1 Builders is an award-winning environmental company, not all of their clients want green homes.
"What does a person do for work?" Dubrow said. "The biggest footprint I have is the work I do."
A more extensive version of the footprint quiz is available online through Earthday, and is a four-page spreadsheet that reads like a tax return.
"III. Register your monthly consumption in column D (or your yearly consumption in column E). Optional: put the dollar amounts into column F. Goods may be entered as they are purchased to calculate a "one-time footprint," or may be divided by their lifetime (i.e. If you purchase 5 pounds of clothing, and expect the clothing to last 3 years, divide 5 pounds by 36 months)."
According to Earthday, this version of the quiz is more accurate than the shorter one. Anyone attempting to calculate his or her footprint using the spreadsheet better set aside about five hours—a background in accounting would not hurt, either.
Dubrow said although sustainability’s definition is debatable, people could be doing more to reduce their impact on the Earth, even if they are unsure of the outcome.
"For the Joe America, the environment isn’t even on their radar screen," Dubrow said. "Most people will say, ‘yeah, I’ll do something for the environment if it’s the same price or cheaper. I’ll take it into consideration.’"
Dubrow said he does not think the American Dream and sustainability can co-exist.
"Worse yet, the American Dream is now the global dream," he said.
Vidaña said he thinks the American Dream is changing.
"I think that more people are seeing that there is an incongruity between what the American dream has been and what it means to be sustainable," he said.
Derek Long, program and development director for Sustainable Connections, a nonprofit organization connecting businesses using sustainable practices, said he doesn’t think most people are ready to give up their cars and fast food.
"I don’t think we are very good at radical change to our lifestyles," Long said. "Crash diets don’t work for people who are overweight. The United States is overweight as far as its environmental impact."
Long said he believes that slow, steady change is possible and as people continue incorporating sustainable practices into their everyday lives, society will start to see results.
Dubrow said he does not think everyone has to change all at once. Even he did not dive headfirst into a sustainable lifestyle.
"I don’t sense a real big difference in my lifestyle because I’ve been doing it step by step, more and more as I’ve gotten older," Dubrow said. "As long as a person’s compass is pointing toward sustainability, that’s the important piece."