# Effective altruism and living a net-positive life

If you have an annual income of 32,400 USD or more per year, you
belong to an exclusive club of
[the richest 1% in the world](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/050615/are-you-top-one-percent-world.asp).
This might sound absurd to those new to the concept of global income
inequality, but is perhaps a bit more palatable when we realise that
[a third of the world lives on 10 dollars a day](https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty)
(that's 3,650 USD a year).

A common response to hearing this is that it can be explained through
cheaper goods in poor countries, exchange rates, or that poor people
can produce a lot of their goods and don't need as much currency.
However, it is possible to account for purchasing power parity and the
economic value of self-produced goods. Fact check after fact check
confirms this - if you are reading this article from a first-world
country, you are likely in the 1%. If you are still incredulous that
people can survive on so little money, the answer is that _they
don't_. The global poor experience malnutrition, limited water, little
or no electricity, lack healthcare, and end up
[dying up to 30 years earlier than the rich](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy)
as a result.


What responsibilities should the 1% have? We know that there are
global issues facing the 99% less fortunate. However, as we surround
ourselves with those equally rich or richer than us, we feel
overwhelmingly average.

As mere individuals, the scale and complexity of these problems are
hard to comprehend. Often, we choose to simply ignore them, chasing
the smaller personal goals we have set in our individual rat races,
like buying a house or raising kids. We hope that there is someone
else, someone smarter, richer, and more influential, who will solve
the problems for us. Is there a practical way to both live our lives
and do good in the world?

In my search for answers, I have come across concepts which I have
distilled into my own practical solution described in this article. I
hope it may help spark debate, and for others to improve on what I
have discovered so far.

## Global problems: which should we address?

Global poverty, climate change, the superbug, and AI misuse are a
small sample of the biggest issues facing humanity. But there's not
much use in solving global poverty if the Earth stops being able to
sustain life. In the long-term, in addition to tackling human-specific
problems, there is a more fundamental issue that all other initiatives
need to comply with.

Simply put, the Earth produces a fixed amount of resources annually
that we can work with, called _biocapacity_. In the same way that
overdrawing funds from the bank results in a financial crisis, we need
to ensure that we don't overdraw the Earth's capacity to sustain life
while solving problems. To do this, we need to determine our
environmental budget.

In Sydney, Australia, I am surrounded by convenience. I have
electricity, water, and waste management. I am surrounded by shops,
restaurants, roads, parks, and schools. I am also surrounded by lots
of other people, each enjoying the same convenience as me. What I
_don't see_ is the infrastructure required to provide this
convenience, and which fraction of that infrastructure is solely
dedicated towards my lifestyle.

The [Global Footprint Network](http://data.footprintnetwork.org/)
figures that the average person in Australia requires 6.6 global
hectares of productive resources (in 2016). The unit of a global
hectare is a little difficult to explain, but I can loosely
approximate it as a regular hectare. This means that somewhere out
there, there are 9-10 FIFA football fields of infrastructure,
producing the water, food, clothes, construction material for my
house, electronics for my computer, and so on, dedicated _just for
me_.


The good news is that Australia is a big country. Australia as a
country can naturally regenerate 12.3 global hectares worth of
resources per person per year. This means that Australia can let all
of its residents happily live at this level of consumption, and each
person in Australia has 5.7gha of surplus left to share with the
kangaroos, koalas, and thousands of other species that also live in
Australia. It sounds a little selfish to take half the area just for
humans, but it's certainly better than nothing.

However, not every country is as large or lucky as Australia, and not
every country is as sparsely populated as Australia. Globally, we
overdraw the Earth's resources, with humans consuming the equivalent
to 1.7 Earths biocapacity. Earth may currently have enough stock to
allow for this, but not all stock is equal, and efforts required to
tap into this stock are at the expense of others species.

The extrapolation of this form of excessive consumption is mass
extinction. Ethically, it's probably a good idea to avoid this.
Unfortunately, the extinction process has already started.
[WWF](http://wwf.panda.org/our_work/biodiversity/biodiversity/)
estimates extinction rates that are 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than
the background extinction rate (i.e. the rate if humans weren't
around).

Regardless of any large issue we choose to tackle, our strategy needs
to also be such that _our ecological footprint does not exceed the
biocapacity available_. Can we balance our ecological budget and do
good at the same time?

## Net-positive living is the solution to biocapacity overdrafting

Architects are no strangers to minimising ecological footprint,
otherwise known as sustainable design. When architects design
buildings, the good ones usually consider strategies to minimise
unnecessary resources, be it electricity, water, or construction
material. Some architects go further and try to design buildings that
_produce_ ecological resources. This is a concept called net-positive,
or regenerative architecture.

Net-positive buildings are designed as a species within an ecosystem.
These buildings, like all species, consume resources, but most
importantly, _produce_ resources that benefit other species. This is
similar to how biological species work in natural ecosystems. These
relationships are important, as the more interdependent species are,
the more resilient an ecosystem is against the risk of collapse.

The good news is that we have managed to design net-positive buildings
with a ledger of their biological impacts over their lifespan. Where
they take from the environment, a strategy is in place to give back
more than they took. There are buildings that
[sequester more carbon than they output](https://ecodatacenter.uk/climate-positive/),
or
[improve water quality](https://vancouverconvention.cdn.prismic.io/vancouverconvention%2F799cc6be-2b09-403b-b1bf-f5424103a1c6_vancouver+convention+centre_sustainability+fact+sheet.pdf),
or [improve soil fertility](https://zaytunafarm.com/about-us/), or
[reduce ecological dead-ends](https://www.earthshipglobal.com/some-of-our-previous-projects),
or
[provide habitat](https://regenesisgroup.com/project/the-willow-school/).
_So if we can design buildings to be net-positive, can we design our
lifestyles to be net-positive too?_

In the case of humans, we consume a lot. Minimising our consumption
(and limiting population growth) are valid and extremely effective
strategies. However, in this article I want to talk about what we
_produce_, which is a trickier problem. Things we produce have an
abnormally large negative contribution to the ecosystem. As an
example, our production of plastic is a bit of an ecological dead-end,
as it doesn't create useful nutrients that new life can spring from.
In fact, our plastic tends to almost universally harm other species.

As you're probably aware, it is quite hard to avoid plastic. Indeed,
plastic is just one of many problems that are built into our
lifestyles and urban infrastructure. The very act of commuting to work
produces air pollution and burns carbon. Eating a meal contributes
towards unethical farming practices and drinking water adds just that
bit more to the unsustainable extraction of freshwater.

There are "extreme" lifestyle changes that have been demonstrated to
mitigate these issues. Such examples are
[urban permaculture](http://www.learnpermaculture.com/),
[veganism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism), the
[zero-waste movement](https://zerowastehome.com/2017/01/24/tedx-talk-zero-waste-is-not-recycling-more-but-less/),
and
[not having children](https://stallman.org/articles/children.html).
They require a level of discipline and dedication that may be simply
unlikely for lots of people. It also requires a lot of research about
things we aren't trained in or access to things we don't have. For
instance, if I live in a 1 bedroom apartment with no garden, my
options for planting trees to offset my carbon footprint are limited.
Or perhaps we want to help with the issue of water scarcity, but we
have no idea what we can even do.

To start with, I've identified the following major categories of human
consumption and production. There are probably more, but it's a start:

- Carbon footprint
- Ethical food consumption
- Sustainable water usage
- Biodiversity and loss of ecosystems
- Waste management
- Air pollution and quality

I'm not an expert on any of these topics. They're all big issues, but
try as I might to avoid plastic, take the train, or buy free-range
eggs, what impact can I really have?

What if we could pay others who are trained and actively involved to
solve the problems for us? It might sound like a cop-out, but if the
alternative is doing nothing, what could we achieve with purely our
wallets? How do we find these people? How do we guarantee that they
can make a difference? _If we make **32,400** USD a year as the
richest **1%** of the world, is **1,620** dollars a year, **135**
dollars a month, or **5%** of our salary enough to live a net-positive
life?_

It might sound crazy, but it might just be possible. Let me explain
how.

## Effective altruism allows specialists to do what they do best

[Effective altruism](https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism)
is the concept that not all altruistic efforts are equal. The example
given by Peter Singer in his TED talk is that if you were interested
in helping blind people, one option is to sponsor a guide dog. The
total cost of training a guide dog and its client comes out to above
40,000USD. However, there are blind people in developing countries
which can have treatments that only amount to 25USD per treatment,
thanks to the preventability of the affliction, and the magic of
exchange rates. Therefore, a utilitarian approach would suggest that a
charity dealing with the latter would be 1,000 times more
cost-effective than raising guide dogs.

As a stellar example, the
[Against Malaria Foundation](https://www.againstmalaria.com/)
recommended by
[GiveWell](https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities) has a
return of
[protecting 90 people from malaria for 3-4 years for every 100USD donated](https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/impact-calculator).
If you donated 5% of your 32,400USD yearly income, you would protect
1,450 people from malaria every year. In contrast, if you quit your
job and became a doctor, you would only
[save about 20 lives over a 43-year career](https://80000hours.org/2012/09/how-many-lives-does-a-doctor-save-part-3-replacement-84/).
This doesn't mean that doctors aren't good to the world, on the
contrary: doctors are what makes health improvement even possible. It
also doesn't mean that doctors should quit their jobs: that would be
the wrong conclusion. What it does demonstrate is that a focused
financial redirection can have a large impact, even if you aren't
employed in the industry.

By identifying effective initiatives that others are taking to solve
global problems, can we support them financially to "offset" the
negative aspects of our own lives? To answer this, we will need three
things:

1. An account of our own ecological footprint
2. An initiative which makes the world a better place with measurable
  impacts
3. A dollar value to offset our actions

I will give examples from my own life below, using the categories of
human consumption and production identified above.

## Example ecological footprint calculations

### Carbon footprint

The concept of a carbon footprint has been heavily researched. This
makes it easy to calculate my personal carbon footprint, easy to
identify initiatives that help store carbon, and easy to place a
dollar value.

We tend to emit carbon directly through our transport, and indirectly
through our lifestyles. These are easily calculated using online
carbon calculators such as this one from
[ClimateCare.org](https://climatecare.org/calculator/) and this one
from
[CarbonFootprint.com](https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx).

Carbon from electricity usage is included in my electricity bill. I
actually pay more for green energy (note: renewables still have a
carbon footprint, just less so!), but in the figures below I have
pretended that I do not purchase green energy.

Car travel can be derived by looking at my car maintenance logbook and
the odometer readings. Based on data from 43 vehicles, 1,329 fuel-ups
and 351,879 miles of driving, the
[2006 Honda Jazz gets a combined average MPG of 33.63](http://www.fuelly.com/car/honda/jazz/2006)
with a 0.50 MPG margin of error. Feel free to look up your car.

Train and bus travel is easy to calculate by measuring a map. You can
do this for free using Google Maps online, although if you are capable
I would encourage doing this exercise with open-source software such
as [QGIS](https://www.qgis.org/) and
[OpenStreetMaps](https://www.openstreetmap.org/).

Here are my personal results for the first six months of 2019:

- **Jan 2019**: 7.59 tCO2eq
 - 236kWh of electricity: 0.21 tCO2eq
 - 730km of car travel: 0.13 tCO2eq
 - 716km of train travel: 0.03 tCO2eq
 - 3km of bus travel: negligible
 - 1500-2000USD of secondary emissions: 7.21 tCO2eq
- **Feb 2019**: 8.74 tCO2eq
 - 207kWh of electricity: 0.18 tCO2eq
 - 659km of car travel: 0.12 tCO2eq
 - 845km of train travel: 0.04 tCO2eq
 - 15km of bus travel: negligible
 - 1500-2000USD of secondary emissions: 8.40 tCO2eq
- **March 2019**: 7.43 tCO2eq
 - 229kWh of electricity: 0.20 tCO2eq
 - 730km of car travel: 0.13 tCO2eq
 - 803km of train travel: 0.04 tCO2eq
 - 1500-2000USD of secondary emissions: 7.06 tCO2eq
- **April 2019**: 9.14 tCO2eq
 - Flight from Sydney (SYD) to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) via Singapore (SIN)
   (return): 1.85 tCO2eq
 - 222kWh of electricity: 0.19 tCO2eq
 - 706km of car travel: 0.13 tCO2eq
 - 281km of train travel: 0.01 tCO2eq
 - 5km of bus travel: negligible
 - 1500-2000USD of secondary emissions: 6.96 tCO2eq
- **May 2019**: 9.62 tCO2eq
 - (Forecasted) 229kWh of electricity: 0.20 tCO2eq
 - 730km of car travel: 0.13 tCO2eq
 - 779km of train travel: 0.03 tCO2eq
 - 1500-2000USD of secondary emissions: 9.26 tCO2eq
- **June 2019**: 7.8 tCO2eq
 - (Forecasted) 222kWh of electricity: 0.19 tCO2eq
 - 706km of car travel: 0.13 tCO2eq
 - 834km of train travel: 0.04 tCO2eq
 - 1500-2000USD of secondary emissions: 7.44 tCO2eq

This gives an average of ~8.4 tonnes of CO2 per month. I personally
find it interesting how much higher secondary emissions are compared
to primary emissions.

Charity evaluators have heavily researched carbon initiatives. One of
the most cost-effective charities in the field is the
[Cool Earth](https://www.coolearth.org/) initiative. If the
[Cool Earth charity is able to reduce CO2 emissions by 0.38 USD per tCO2eq](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/report/cool-earth/#3-overall-evaluation),
it will cost me only 39USD per year (or 3 dollars 20 cents per month)
to become net-zero in terms of carbon. Even if I conservatively took
the upper bound of the research estimate at 0.71 USD per tCO2eq, it
only comes out to be roughly 6USD a month. This is very affordable.

I'm in Australia, so if I donate 20AUD a month (the cost of a dinner
at a nice restaurant), this is equivalent to reducing all my CO2
emissions 2-4 times. This should be enough to cover any inaccuracies
in my estimations, and still have an additional net-positive impact.

For interested readers, there is some
[criticism of Cool Earth](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RnmZ62kuuC8XzeTBq/why-we-have-over-rated-cool-earth),
as well as suggestions to look at other approaches such as initiatives
around contraception.

**Result: ~14USD per month**

### Ethical food consumption

Our food systems have an animal cruelty problem. We've covered the
carbon aspect of our eating, and later we'll cover the water use and
loss of biodiversity, but we need to do something about our actual
treatment of animals.

The
[average Australian in 2017 eats 8.6kg of sheep, 21.1kg of beef, 21.3kg of pork, and 44kg of poultry every year](https://data.oecd.org/agroutput/meat-consumption.htm).
Let's round that up to 100kg of meat carcass per year. Note that our
actual consumption weight would be slightly less, as carcass includes
disposable parts such as bones, food prep, and spoilage.

Charities that deal with animal cruelty are researched to a lesser
quality compared to human charities or environmental charities. Simply
put, it's harder to measure the quality of life changes with farming
practices, and even harder to confidently attribute these changes to
the actions of a charity.

That said,
[Animal Charity Evaluators](https://animalcharityevaluators.org/), the
animal-focused equivalent of GiveWell mentioned above recommends the
[Albert Schweitzer Foundation](https://albertschweitzerfoundation.org/).
Here's the
[claim from the website](https://animalcharityevaluators.org/charity-review/albert-schweitzer-foundation/#overview).

> From an average $1,000 donation, ASF would spend about $530 on
> corporate outreach campaigns. They would spend about $270 on
> individual outreach, $160 on legal advocacy, and $40 on media
> outreach. Our rough estimate is that these activities combined would
> spare -110,000 to 220,000 animals from life in industrial
> agriculture.

The negative values are because it is quite hard to actually guarantee
that the charity itself is doing good instead of harm. The detailed
review additionally warns that
[these cost-effectiveness estimates should not be taken as an overall opinion of the charity](https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/methodology/our-use-of-cost-effectiveness-estimates/#4.1),
as they are very broad approximations. In fact, they encourage a low
degree of confidence in these numbers. If you wanted to truly select
an animal cruelty charity to support, it is recommended to read the
full qualitative analysis. If you did want to focus on quantitative
analysis, there are [ethical food calculators](http://ethical.diet/)
online.

That said, using the numbers as a ballpark is better than nothing. If
we simplistically take the midpoint of the 90% Subjective Confidence
Interval, it results in about 55 animals spared per dollar. It doesn't
specify exactly what type of animal it is (but the report suggests
that it is _not_ fish), so we can be conservative and imagine that
they are the smallest common animal out there: chickens.

If we further continued our overestimated ballpark that we ate 100kg
of meat per year, this is equivalent to 800
[125g drumsticks](https://www.chicken.org.au/chicken-cuts/), or
affecting the lives of 400 chickens. Obviously, we eat more parts of a
chicken than just the drumsticks, and we also eat other types of meat,
but chicken drumsticks seem to be the lightest quantum of meat we can
use to conservatively maximise our animal count. Even with this
inflated number of animals, it still only costs 8USD a year to offset
our actions. We could happily multiply that by a factor of 10 as a
penalty for the ultra rough calculations we're doing, and the
resultant of 80USD per year is still within our budget.

**Result: ~7USD per month**

### Sustainable water usage

Water, like carbon, is relatively easy to calculate. Apart from
looking at your water bill which has your direct water consumption,
there are some indirect water usages through our lifestyles, such as
eating meat. I found a water calculator from
[WaterFootprint.org](https://waterfootprint.org/en/resources/interactive-tools/personal-water-footprint-calculator/)
and [WaterCalculator.org](https://www.watercalculator.org/).

My water usage is not metered separately from my landlord, so my water
bill is not an accurate representation of my direct consumption.
However, I have conservatively outlined the following lavish
lifestyle:

- 2x10 minute showers per day with a standard showerhead
- 1.5 laundry loads per week
- 1x10 minute dishwashing session
- 1x5 minute garden watering per week
- No car washing

This comes out to 12kL per month. To put this into perspective,
[10 litres a day](https://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/UNHCR_handbook.pdf)
is seen as a threshold where people become water refugees. The
[Sphere Handbook (page 107)](https://spherestandards.org/handbook/editions/)
says that the basic water requirements to be used for planning refugee
camps ranges from 7.5-15 litres per day. Therefore, my water
consumption can serve 26 to 53 refugees.

A
[Guardian article about the drought in Indian villages](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/12/indian-villages-lie-empty-as-drought-forces-thousands-to-flee)
describes residents who are too poor to buy water due to water
scarcity. Those who can afford water need to pay 4USD per 1,000
litres. If 4USD per person sounds affordable to prevent a water
refugee crisis, it means that we can certainly make a big impact.

But let's take a look at our indirect water consumption. Here's a
conservative estimate of what I eat:

- 125g of meat per meal
- 4.5kg of cereal products per week
- 2kg of meat per week
- 2kg of dairy per week
- 8 eggs per week
- 1kg of vegetables per week
- 1kg of fruits per week
- 1kg of starchy roots per week
- 1 cup of coffee per day

This indirect water use totals 117kL per month. This is 10 times more
than my direct water consumption and is largely "invisible" to me. The
largest culprit is meat-eating, resulting in 54% of my water, followed
by cereal products with 25%.

Both my direct and indirect water usage combined comes out to 129kL
per month.

When it comes to addressing this 129kL per month, it's not about
extracting more water for other people who don't have access to water.
Humans are already quite capable of water extraction -- the problem is
in _sustainable_ water extraction. Instead, we should ensure that the
[world's natural infrastructure](https://www.wri.org/publication/natural-infrastructure)
remains operational to produce freshwater. Examples of natural
infrastructure are our rivers, lakes, and wetlands.

Living in Sydney, the water I produce is first processed through
treatment plants before being discharged into the ocean. This helps
ensure that the waterways stay clean. Unfortunately, not all countries
are as lucky as Sydney, and some discharge polluted water directly
into the ocean.

The water I consume directly, however, comes primarily from the
Warragamba Dam, which mostly acts as a reservoir, instead of a
hydroelectric dam. Dams have large issues with damaging natural
systems, and it would do a large amount of good to replace dams
worldwide, or let
[dams release pulses of water](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140322-colorado-river-delta-pulse-flow-morelos-dam-minute-319-water/).
However, initiatives that target dams and rivers are few and difficult
to pin down evidence of efficiency.

Most of my water consumption is indirect and is captured through
agricultural practices. Australian agriculture is affected by
[mismanagement of the Murray-Darling basin](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/apr/05/murray-darling-when-the-river-runs-dry),
where a catchment larger than Egypt has been slowly deteriorating.
Wrapped up in political events, the bottom line shows that despite
efforts, the rivers are dying and
[up to a million fish are dead](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/24/murray-darling-fish-kill-extreme-weather-and-low-river-flow-led-to-drop-in-oxygen-levels).
Yet again, it is hard to find any targeted initiative that has
evidence of efficiency.

The remaining infrastructure to consider is wetlands. Wetlands serve
many functions, only one of which is water purification. An
arbitrarily discovered EPA study suggests one particular
[wetland processes 378.5kL per day for a 1.3ha site](https://www3.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/free_water_surface_wetlands.pdf).
This provides a ballpark figure of processing 291kL per day per
hectare. Therefore, I would need to support 1 hectare of wetlands for
6 days to cover my yearly water usage of 1548kL.

Wetlands are protected globally through the
[Ramsar Convention](https://www.ramsar.org/). Ramsar identifies
wetlands of importance, and participating countries ban harmful
industry actions in the area and conservation groups are set up to
protect and monitor it. One particularly large Ramsar site nearby is
the
[Hunter Estuary Wetlands](https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/water/wetlands/internationally-significant-wetlands/hunter-estuary-wetlands).
It meets 3 out of the
[9 Ramsar criteria](https://www.ramsar.org/sites/default/files/documents/library/ramsarsites_criteria_eng.pdf).

The
[Hunter estuary wetlands have a total area of 3,388ha](https://rsis.ramsar.org/ris/287)
and incurs
[yearly expenses (2013) of 320,000AUD](https://control.visionscape.com.au/SiteFiles/wetlandsorgau/Annual_Report_Print_Ready.pdf).
Given that they are
[financially struggling](https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/5373607/hunter-wetlands-centre-seeking-support-amid-financial-struggle/),
it suggests that they have cut costs since and also that the marginal
utility gain from additional donations would be higher. However, with
this area and yearly expense, it suggests it costs on average 94AUD to
maintain each hectare for a year.

Given that I only need to maintain a hectare for 6 days to process my
volume of water, it only costs me 1.6AUD per year. Of course, this is
an extremely crude calculation with numerous assumptions (e.g. same
water processing rate as EPA benchmark, or than the full area of
wetlands is protected or functioning equally, or that there is a
linear relationship with business expenses and wetland function). As a
result, I'd be happy to be wrong by a factor of 100, and decide that I
should dedicate 160AUD per year, or 108USD.

**Result: ~9USD per month**

### Biodiversity and loss of ecosystems

It is difficult to determine exactly how much biodiversity is lost per
person. Clearly, the footprint of my house excludes all wildlife but
the urban flora and fauna. However, there are many indirect losses,
such as from the farmland required to produce our food.

An easier approach is to look at our total ecological footprint.
Earlier in this article, I stated that the average Australian had 6.6
global hectares of infrastructure per capita. This is one of the
highest in the world. If we loosely approximate these to be regular
hectares, I would need to somehow protect at least 6.6 hectares of
ecosystem out there.

These hectares of ecosystems aren't just limited to Australian
ecology. Thanks to global trade, they cross many typologies, such as
forests, grasslands, deserts, mountains, and marine environments. As
such, I turned to the [WWF](https://www.worldwildlife.org/), which has
initiatives targeting many parts of the world.

The
[WWF seems to dedicate a large portion of its funds to program expenses](https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4770),
despite a 750,000USD salary for its CEO. Its latest yearly expenses
were 247 million dollars. But what exactly did it achieve with such
spending?

To answer this, I turned to the
[WWF habitats page](https://www.worldwildlife.org/habitats), which
talks about their initiatives in different ecosystems. Although
independent analysis rather than claims from the WWF itself would be
preferred, it's a starting point.

On the page on wetlands, they make this claim:

> About 75% of the sites added to the [Ramsar] list since 1999 were
> included as a result of WWF’s work.

Downloading the [Ramsar database](https://rsis.ramsar.org/ris-search/)
allows us to filter sites added in the 2000 or later, of which there
are 1,359 sites. 75% of this is 1019 sites. If we sort it in terms of
site area and take the middle 1,019 sites, we estimate that the WWF
has protected a total of 17,546,560ha of wetland. This is about 10% of
the total added area of all sites (176,141,282ha), so clearly there
are some large outliers in the top 12.5%, which suggests that this
number is an underestimate.

For marine environments, the
[Marine Protected Areas](http://wwf.panda.org/our_work/oceans/solutions/protection/protected_areas/)
is the equivalent of the Ramsar sites. Its main proponent is the
[Marine Conservation Institute](https://marine-conservation.org/), but
WWF does play a role and has helped add MPAs to the map since the
inception near the year 2000. However, I have not been able to find
such a bold claim similar to the Ramsar statement of adding 75% of new
sites.

The MPA aims to cover 30% of the ocean, but
[currently only covers 4.8%](http://mpatlas.org/). However, the ocean
is mindbogglingly large, with an area of 36,100,000,000ha, so this
4.8% comes out to about 1,732,800,000ha. Conservatively if WWF's
contribution was 1% of this area, the WWF protects 17,328,000ha.

For forests,
[WWF started the ARPA project in 2002](https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/protecting-the-amazon-for-life).
It is the world's largest conservation project targeting the Brazilian
Amazon region. By 2017, it has protected
[58,274,784ha](https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/arpa-for-life-amazon-region-protected-area-phase-iii-report-2017).
Admittedly, it was also thanks to the help of other organisations,
even if WWF did start the initiative and make large contributions.
There were four main contributors: the Government of Brazil, WWF, the
Linden Trust for Conservation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore
Foundation, but let's say the WWF contributed merely 10%, meaning that
the WWF had protected 5,827,478ha.

Just through these three large initiatives alone, over 19 years (with
each year spending 247 million dollars), the WWF has a cost
effectiveness of 115USD per hectare protected per year. For the
average Australian ecological footprint of 6.6ha (loosely approximated
from global hectares), it costs just 64USD per month to offset my loss
in biodiversity.

Given that there are other unaccounted initiatives that target the
polar regions, desertification, mountains, grasslands, and indirect
protection that surely exists from WWF's work, it would be a
reasonable conclusion to say that a monthly 64USD (90AUD) is enough to
both offset and be net-positive.

**Result: ~64USD per month**

### Waste management

The issue with waste is that they are usually ecological dead ends.
Waste that isn't composted, or recycled turns into landfill that very
little new life can spring from.

Measuring my direct waste was easy. I weighed my unrecycled trash
every time I threw it out. I end up throwing out about 52kg of waste
per year. Clearly, I run a very lean lifestyle compared to the
[average per capita municipal waste of 560kg](https://data.oecd.org/waste/municipal-waste.htm).
However, it is very hard to measure my indirect waste, especially as
the waste industry can be quite opaque. The Bureau of Statistics
suggests
[Australians produce 2,215kg of waste per capita per year](https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4655.0).

The solution to the waste problem, apart from consuming less, is to
change our manufacturing methods to consider the entire lifecycle of
the product. There is a concept known as
[Cradle-to-Cradle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle-to-cradle_design),
where products are designed to be waste free, as part of a natural
cycle of nutrients. If humans produced products this way, our waste
wouldn't be waste.

The
[Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute](https://www.c2ccertified.org/)
was started by the creators of the cradle to cradle movement, and
offer product certification and resources to allow manufacturers to
change their ways.

This is a relatively new initiative, but they do make some claims on
their [donation page](https://www.c2ccertified.org/), such as:

> Shaw Industries makes 80% of its 4.5 Billion in sales with Cradle to
> Cradle Certified™ products. Aveda was the first beauty company to
> manufacture its products with 100% wind power in its manufacturing
> facility in Minnesota. IceStone has moved, since 2003, 10 million
> pounds of glass out of the waste stream as part of their product
> design and manufacturing.

Let's consider the first claim, as
[Shaw Industries](https://shawfloors.com/shaw-sustainability/shaw-sustainability-report-2017)
is one of the largest carpet manufacturers out there. Shaw Industries
has an incredible
[sustainability track record](https://shawinc.com/Newsroom#Sustainability-Reports),
and have produced Cradle to Cradle products since 2010, which is when
the Cradle to Cradle Institute started. In 2010, ~50% of their sales
were in Cradle to Cradle products, and in 2019, they are at ~90%. This
increase of 40% of sales across 9 years represents ~10 billion dollars
in sales. If the average sale of a product was at a pricey 100USD per
square metre and each square metre weighed ~2kg, this equates to
202,400,000kg of Cradle to Cradle products. If the average
[yearly expenses of the institute](https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.profile&ein=271832830)
are 2,312,135USD, this results in a cost effectiveness of 10 cents per
kilogram.

To cover the average Australian waste of 2,215kg, it results in 221USD
per year, or 19USD per month. This is likely enough to be
net-positive, as we have assumed that no waste is already diverted
from landfill, and only considered one of the claims - they have
certainly made strides elsewhere.

**Result: ~19USD per month**

### Air pollution and quality

Air pollution is a tricky one. Although
[Sydney's air quality is 20% below the safe level of PM2.5 annual exposure](https://breathelife2030.org/city-data-page/?city=49)
(i.e. it's very clean), the atmosphere is the dumping ground for a lot
of waste so it is hard to attribute air pollution to a particular
person. If we merely took that figure at face value, it would suggest
that Australia is already "net-positive" in terms of air quality (at
least when compared to the WHO baseline). It is also hard to find
initiatives that have published measurable results in reducing air
pollution.

Air pollution is primarily due to fuel burning. Initiatives that help
most would be to do with switching to greener fuel sources: for our
power stations, transport, and cooking. In fact,
[EnergyAustralia offers 100% green energy for no cost to consumers](https://www.energyaustralia.com.au/home/bills-and-accounts/go-neutral).
So switching to that would be extremely cost effective: as it would
cost nothing!

The type of fuel that is burned has a strong correlation with income,
as studied by the WHO. Poor people have to rely on unhealthy fuel
sources which create health problems. The
[WHO estimates 3 billion people who have to burn wood, dung, and coal inside their homes](https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/43421).
The more we can raise people out of poverty, the sooner they can
naturally make the switch to better infrastructure. As an example, the
WHO states that the pollution in a hut with open fire is 100 times
more than the Berlin city centre. The switch between solid fuel and
gas or kerosene improves air quality by 10 times. A little less
optimistically, the purchase of an improved stove design still results
in a decrease in pollution from 50 to 90%. This gives an idea of the
magnitude of cost effectiveness in targeting the global poor.


The good news is that tackling global poverty is a well-researched
area with plenty of cost effective choices. With our remaining budget
of 22 per month, we can donate to
[GiveDirectly](https://www.givedirectly.org/), where you can, well ...
simply give that money to the extreme poor. This is almost equivalent
to 1 year of their universal basic income initiative (0.75$ per day -
compared to the global poverty line of 1.25$ per day), where they can
rebuild their lives. The results show that they spend this on assets
and nutrition primarily, with a resultant increase in earning, lifting
them out of the global poor.

If you wanted to explore other more directly related initiatives to
explore would be those such as
[CityTrees](https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/air-pollution-eating-moss-cleans-hotspots-europe),
the [Clean Air Task Force](https://www.catf.us/), the
[World Health Organisation](https://www.who.int/airpollution/ambient/policy-governance/en/),
the [Coalition for Clean Air](https://www.ccair.org/clear/), or one of
many
[Smokeless cooking initiatives](https://smokelesscookstovefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/SCF-Khandwa-Report-October-1st-2018-1.pdf)
that swap out cooking equipment in poor countries.

Without any other stronger quantitative foundation, in addition to my
own switch to 100% green energy, I have chosen to target the global
poor, rather than more direct approaches. I would encourage readers to
decide what approach suits them best and to do their own research.

**Result: ~22USD per month**

## A budget for a net-positive life

Our final monthly budget is as follows:

- 14USD donated to Cool Earth
- 7USD donated to the Albert Schweitzer Foundation
- 9USD donated to the Hunter Estuary Wetlands
- 64USD donated to the WWF
- 19USD donated to the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute
- 22USD donated to GiveDirectly

This totals 135USD per month, or 1,620USD per year, which is 5% of a
32,400USD yearly income. It covers a large range of issues, chosen to
reflect the various dimensions of our non-anthropocentric production
and consumption as a species.

The budget demonstrates that with a small donation it is possible to
actually make a large and measurable impact as an individual. These
calculations have been extremely conservative on purpose, and I have
refused to double count benefits (e.g. work by the WWF would also have
impacts on the carbon footprint, but I did not count it twice). I
should warn, however, that I am not a subject matter expert, and so if
you are more experienced in any of the fields I have mentioned in this
article and can help suggest improvements, please send me an email!

Net-positive living is just the beginning! There are so many other
important issues to consider in the world, and if you make more than
32,400USD (pre-tax) per year, perhaps you can donate even more than
the small budget I set in this article. Please feel free to explore
[Giving What We Can](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/),
[GiveWell](https://www.givewell.org/), and
[80,000 hours](https://80000hours.org/).

As a final note, I should emphasize that in this article, I have only
focused on the financial. Financial ballparks are not the only
approach nor guaranteed to be the best approach to the world's
problems. In fact, there are
[many ways where cost-effective estimates are misleading](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zdAst6ezi45cChRi6/list-of-ways-in-which-cost-effectiveness-estimates-can-be).
Personally, I believe that
[ethical offsetting is not enough](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Yix7BzSQLJ9TYaodG/ethical-offsetting-is-antithetical-to-ea),
and it is absolutely vital to also change our behaviours - to recycle
when possible, to choose renewable sources, and to reduce our
materialism. Everybody will have their own unique and valuable
contributions to the world, so I urge all readers to research,
evaluate, and do the best you can, in your own way.

_We can change things_.

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