Eco Footprints Guide

The eco footprint system is included in the Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle expansion pack. You can have either a green, industrial, or neutral eco footprint depending on a few different factors. Your sim's eco footprint can effect their overall mood and lifestyle.

Creating the type of eco footprint you want is not as easy as it seems, you need to consider what your sim builds their house out of, the objects they use, and their lifestyle during game play. This article will go over each eco footprint and how you can go about changing your sim's eco footprint and your neighborhood's eco footprint.

Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle Expansion

The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle expansion focuses on bringing alternative energy sources to the sims and neighborhood action plans to bring your community together to create change. With Eco Lifestyle you can create shipping container homes, having a garden on your roof, and fabricate your own furniture. Your sim can become a Civil Designer, create candles, and juice to sell as a side hustle (or their main gig) and much more.

What types of Eco Footprints are there?

The Eco Footprint has multiple levels to it, your sim's individual lot has an eco footprint and each individual lot affects your neighborhood's footprint. If you are trying to change your neighborhood footprint you may have to edit a few lots within the neighborhood to make get it to become either Green or Industrial.

There are three different types of Eco Footprints either lots and/or neighborhoods can have: Green, Neutral, and Industrial. A green footprint will result in your sim being happier overall when outside, and it also increases utility production from solar panels, wind turbines, and dew collectors. An industrial footprint will result in noticeable smog and pollution that will affect your sim's mood negatively, you also will receive increased utility production from atmospheric water generators and power generators.

What affects your eco footprint?

Depending on which direction you want to take your sim's eco footprint there are a few things you will want to do and other things you want avoid. You will need to consider three different areas in your sim's life to get your desired footprint, what you use to build your sim's house, the type of objects your sim uses, and your sim's lifestyle.

How to get a green footprint.

Going green requires your sim to be conscious of how much energy and water the use and produce. When building your sim's house you will want to look at the building materials you use in your sim's home. You will want to look out for wall papers, flooring, windows, doors, and roofing materials that have a Green Ecofootprint Rating. You can check this rating by hovering over your desired building material and look for the rating that should appear under the description of the material.

When furnishing your sim's home you will also want to make sure you use power and water efficient objects. To check if your sim's objects are efficient you will need to pay attention to the power consumption rating and the water consumption rating. All objects that use either power or water have a consumption rating between 1 and 10.

If you want to learn more about consumption ratings and what they mean you can check out these articles that go in depth into both power consumption rating and water consumption rating.

In addition to efficient objects, you may also want to consider adding either solar panels, windmills, or dew collectors to your sim's lot. These green alternatives will help off set any power and water you sim uses, but they also have a green eco footprint rating on them that will help influence your sim's lot's eco footprint.

Lastly, you will want to consider your sim's lifestyle when playing to keep their footprint as green as possible. You can vote on and help enact neighborhood action plans that can influence your neighborhood's eco footprint. You can also avoid using more power or water than your sim creates themselves. You can also choose to upgrade all your appliances, and other objects using eco upgrade parts.

How to get an industrial footprint.

Creating an industrial footprint is not as easy as you would first think. It is not necessarily based on the lack of using green alternative objects, but implementing industrial building materials and objects. When building your sim's house you will want to look at the building materials you use in your sim's home. You will want to look out for wall papers, flooring, windows, doors, and roofing materials that have an Industrial Ecofootprint Rating. You can check this rating by hovering over your desired building material and look for the rating that should appear under the description of that particular material.

When picking objects you will want to choose the least efficient power and water objects available. You also want to make sure you include a fireplace in your sim's house, these have a huge impact on your sim's eco footprint.

Going off grid and relying on industrial alternatives will help push your sim's lot over to the industrial side. There are two industrial power and water sources you can add to your lot, the power generator and the atmospheric water generator. If you want to learn more about going off the grid and how to successfully become self sufficient, you can learn more through this guide that goes over everything you need to know about the off the grid lot challenge.

Lastly, you will want to consider what lifestyle choices your sim is making. Fires are one of the biggest contributors to the industrial footprint. In winter you will want to make sure you light your fireplace often, and throw a few bomb-fires every now and again. In summer you will want to run the air conditioning 24/7, and use as much power and water as you possibly can, just make sure you keep your power and water generators full of fuel.

How to get a neutral footprint.

Most neighborhoods outside of Evergreen Harbor will start off with a neutral footprint. To get a neutral footprint you need to either avoid objects or activities that will make your footprint green or industrial, or you need to counteract your sim's current footprint to neutralize the effects.

When building your sim's lot, look out for building materials that have no eco footprint rating at all. Luckily most materials fall into this category and will not impact your sim's lot in either direction. Additionally, you will want to look for objects that do not have any eco footprint ratings, and fall somewhere in the middle of the power or water consumption ratings.

If you do decide to use objects that have a significant impact on your sim's eco footprint, make sure you implement measures to off set the effects. For example, if you have to have a fireplace in your house and use it during the winter months, you may want to put a few solar panel's on your sim's roof or use a flooring that has a green eco footprint. This will help keep your sim's footprint right in the middle.

How to change your neighborhood's eco footprint.

Changing your sim's current lot either green or industrial is not always enough to change your entire neighborhood's eco footprint. There are a few things you can do to impact your sim's neighborhood overall.

The neighborhood's eco footprint is an aggregate of all the lots within that neighborhood. The easiest way to change your neighborhood footprint is to go into each lot within your sim's neighborhood and add either green or industrial rated build and buy objects. Changing multiple lots to either green or industrial will have a significant effect on your neighborhood's eco footprint as a whole.

You can also influence's the sims in your neighborhood's lifestyle by enacting neighborhood action plans that have a green impact*. Some neighborhood actions plans such as "Green Gardening," "Eco-Friendly Appliances," and "Upcycling Initiative" will influence your neighborhood's eco footprint.

*There currently are not any neighborhood action plans that encourage industrial related lifestyle choices.