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What does it mean to live green?

Taking care of the environment which takes care of you.

That's one of the tenets of living a green lifestyle.

It all comes down to consumption.

Using environmentally friendly products and making conscious decisions to use less energy when possible.

So what does it mean to be green?

Virginia Tech Biological Sciences Department Head, Dr. Bob Jones says being green is a philosophy of understanding that people have a relationship with their environment. Seeing the environment as a support system that provides us with goods and services, shelter and food.

"If you don't understand that relationship and develop it in a way which we can sustain that production of goods and services in perpetuity, we're in trouble," Dr. Jones said.

Part of that understanding is getting past the misconceptions of what being green means.

Dr. Jones says one of the biggest misconceptions is that switching our consumption to green products is going to make a big impact.

In fact, the consumption habits themselves that need to be changed.

Dr. Jones says the United States makes up about 5% of the world population, but uses nearly 25-percent of all of the energy.

"We're basically a society that over-consumes. And the globe can not sustain the whole rest of the world rising to the consumption rate that we have. And they aspire to do so."

A great way to reduce energy consumption is to pay attention to how much you use with a carbon footprint calculator and making adjustments to your daily habits.

Dr. Jones reducing energy consumption is not only good for the environment; it's good for your wallet as well. He says the average person who reduces consumption by 20-30 percent can see savings of hundreds or thousands of dollars a year.