Today officially marks the second week of spring quarter. As you may know, my name is Cody Hulsey and I am senior at Western Washington University. I will be graduating this June with a degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing. I love music, fashion, and working-out.

A month ago, I was debating on what classes to take this quarter. I knew that I wanted to take a couple marketing classes and wind surfing (you gotta have some fun your last quarter of college). I was scrolling through the marketing classes that were going to be offered and then all of a sudden my eyes locked on Marketing Strategies for Sustainability. I was hesitant at first because I didn’t really have a strong opinion when it came to the topic of sustainability. My Step-Dad is a very environmentally conscious individual. I was constantly educated on the topic but for some reason I felt standoffish. Then I realized that the reason that I was standoffish was because global warming is a serious scary thing. As a marketer and individual who has grown throughout the years, I decided that I want to start getting serious about sustainability.

My first car in high school was a Volkswagen Jetta. Yeah, I know, this car is very popular among high school girls. But what made this car bad-ass, was the fact that this car ran on used vegetable oil. My MPG was something to brag about, if I remember correctly, it was around 45 MPG. It often made the car smell like french fries but it ultimately made a positive impact on the environment.

Recently I decided that I should see what my personal ecological foot-print was. MyFootPrint.org is a really cool website that offers a quiz to see how many planet earths we would need if everyone lived like you did. As I was doing the quiz, I often found myself having to really think about my recycling habits and how much meat I consume. When it got closer to the end of the quiz, I found myself thinking that I was not leaving the most positive impact on our earth. Especially when the quiz spit out the results.

If everyone were to live like me, we would need 5.51 earths (I felt very guilty as I was typing that out BTW). After completing this quiz, I decided that it was time to change some of my habits.

One area that I really need to improve on is my Food Footprint. I work-out a lot and with that said, I eat a lot. But that does not mean their is ways to eat more efficiently. Starting tomorrow, I will be participating in meatless Mondays. Not only will this be a hard change for me but it will make me feel better as a human being.

Another category that needs improvement is my Housing Footprint. Although it is not much higher than the country average, it still needs to be improved. To help reduce this footprint, I plan on taking James Bond showers Monday through Friday. James Bond showers are essentially cold showers. When you use hot water in the shower, it is using energy. I believe that this will cause a decrease in my Housing Footprint.

Like I stated earlier, I really enjoy working out. I thought for quite sometime on how I can incorporate this into my sustainable practices. Then it dawned on me. I realized that I often find myself driving to the gym (especially if it’s after 4:30PM). Instead, I decided that I am going to start riding my mountain bike to the gym. This will allow me to cut-back on carbon emissions and get a nice warm-up before my workout.

Every week I will keep you updated on how my sustainable practices are going. I hope the my sustainable journey will inspire you to take on sustainable practices. Make sure to subscribe to my blog posts to stay current with what is going on.