National Geographic ranked the consumers of several nations of the world with their “Consumer Greendex” and not surprisingly enough the United States was ranked dead last with a 45 out of 100. Leading the pack were the consumers of Brazil and India with a rank of 60. It may be hard to imagine people in Brazil and India purchasing enough carbon offsets or offsetting their carbon footprint for most of their plane trips, but here are a few things that they are doing to help maintain a leading score in the eyes of consumption impact.

Purchasing locally grown food has a very clean aspect to it, and Brazilians are very big into keeping their purchases a local as possible. We’re not talking buying it from your neighborhood convenience store local, were talking buying from the actual grower and producer local. In India buying local is also very big, partly because the economic impact of buying from elsewhere is just too much for many people to handle.

Housing size is also a big part of the winning equation, especially for Brazil. Most homes have four rooms or fewer and they primarily use on-demand water heaters and cold water for washing clothes. There is also a wide penetration of biomass fuels available which are just one of many renewable energy sources that are starting to catch on here in the United States.