Co2 emissions in the US are currently 14.44 metric tonnes per capita, while on average, each individual produces around 20 tonnes per year. Considering the world average is 4 metric tonnes per person, it seems slightly excessive.
Becoming more sustainable is a lifestyle many people are getting on board with to help them reduce their impact on the world and preserve resources, not to mention save money.
But this doesn’t mean you need to forgo all modern luxuries, far from it. It means being clever about what you consume to help you minimize your impact on the world and play your part in using fewer resources and further contributing to the decline of the environment.
But is becoming more sustainable as easy as it sounds? The answer is yes and no. It simply depends on what your goals are, how you currently live your life, and what you want to achieve and why. Doing it for the wrong reasons is going to backfire, and you won’t be able to stick to things. To help you on your journey to becoming more sustainable, you should;
- Identify areas of excessive waste
- Identify your goals
- Look at what resources are available
- Identify appropriate swaps
- Make small, consistent changes
- Go at your own pace
- Do your research
So, with this in mind, how and where can you make the required changes? This post is about to delve into the different ways you can reduce your impact on the world by embracing sustainability.
Clothing
One easy area to start off your sustainability journey is to address the clothing purchases you are making and your current wardrobe choices. In the first instance, you can commit to avoiding fast fashion where possible, as fast fashion is one of the most significant contributors to water worldwide. On top of this, fast fashion suppliers are often led to poor working practices, inhumane working conditions, and low pay. These pieces are also more likely to be of inferior quality and will need to be replaced more frequently than expensive versions.
Make a choice to change where you buy your clothes, how frequently you buy them, or even how you dispose of items you no longer need. Donating old clothing can give them a new lease of life; buying higher quality clothes can last longer, wash better, and wear well, meaning you won’t have to replace them so fat. From here, you can go one step further by buying more sustainable pieces made from materials such as cotton (including organic), bamboo, hemp, linen, and wool.
Tips for a more sustainable wardrobe include;
- Decluttering what you already own and donating or repurposing items that are no longer suitable or that you want to keep.
- Match up different pieces to create new outfits.
- Upcycle items, e.g., worn jeans, can easily make shorts, long skirts, short skirts, or dresses, and denim can be sewn together to create a new jacket, shirt, or skirt, for example.
- Wash items correctly to extend their lifespan and reduce wear and tear from cleaning.
- Store season items in a vacuum bag to help preserve them for the next year, and rotate your wardrobe accordingly to avoid buying new each season.
- Choose items made from higher quality, more sustainable materials when replacing old or worn clothing.
- Create a capsule wardrobe with minimal items that all work well together.
- Use the 30/30/30 rule: choose 30 items of clothing (including shoes and accessories that you can make 30 outfits from for 30 days.
Travel
How you travel can have a massive impact on you and your emissions. While flying is arguably the most unsustainable way to travel, not many people travel by plane on a daily basis for their commute. By and large, car travel is actually the biggest culprit. There are over 280 million cars on the road in the US as of September 2022. Fuel consumption from driving equates to 4.6 metric tonnes of CO2 per year per person/car, making it completely unsustainable.
But car travel isn’t the only way to get to where you need to be. While electric cars are arguably more efficient and produce no emissions when being driven compared to those powered by gas or diesel, electric vehicles aren’t for everyone, nor are cars needed for every journey.
Using public transport is a great way to reduce fuel consumption, as is ride-sharing, walking, and cycling. A new mode of transportation that is becoming more popular is the electric scooter, especially in heavily populated areas. Electric scooters can get you through crowds quickly and are efficient in more ways than one. However, depending on the area you’ll live in, they might not be suitable. You should always check the IP ratings for adult electric scooters when considering them for commuting purposes, as some models aren’t designed for use in overly wet climates or where snowfall is frequent.
Consume Less
In a consumer-driven world, it’s easy to buy things and sell them or even waste them simply because you can. But this doesn’t do your bank account or the world any good. Just because something is readily available doesn’t mean you need to use it as much as possible.
Identify areas where you’re spending too much money or using too many resources and look at how you can reduce this. If you want to start at home, you can look at the electric, heating, and water consumption of your household and identify waste and ways you can cut it down.
You can swap baths for showers, turn lights off in empty rooms, or unplug electrical form outlets when not in use. Swapping over to LED bulbs will not only save you money on energy bills, but you will use less energy to light them.
Insulating your home and being careful about switching your heating and cooling on can help you to reduce bills; simple tips like opening and closing windows and curtains can help you to heat or cool a room, adding insulation to cavity walls, basements, roof spaces, for example, can help to trap warm air and adding additional glazing options to windows can help you to increase energy efficiency and reduce how much heat it takes to warm your home.
Moving on, look at how you spend your money on items you bring into the house. Are things wrapped in copious amounts of plastic that will take many years to break down if they ever do? Are you using too many single-use products that can be avoided? Or do you replace things without using them at the end of their lifespan or when they break instead of repairing them? Repurposing items around the home, using them as thoroughly as possible, and watching what you spend or buy can help you to consume less and reduce your waste.
Food Shopping
The food you buy and where you buy it from can come at a heavy cost to the environment. While not all foods are readily available in your area, buying as much fresh or local produce as possible will reduce miles traveled and instantly be more sustainable than choosing options flown in from around the world. Visit local farmers markets, use local suppliers, shop for fresh fruit and veg when it’s in season, and be more mindful about where your food comes from. These small changes can quickly add up and become easy habits you adopt without thinking over time.
You can even grow your own fruits and veggies or own chickens and have your own eggs produced in your garden to save buying them from the grocery store.
Try to plan your meals in advance so you are not buying what you don’t need, take a shopping list, and be mindful of where you shop and when you shop. This can be instrumental in making better food choices. Remember, fresh is always best, so check everything you buy to find out where it’s from, how fresh it is, and if you really need it.
Once you become more adept at shopping like this or you want to try something different, looking for ways to use up food waste can be an excellent place to start. From composting to making recipes using leftover food scraps, there are plenty of better options than throwing things in the bin.
Becoming more sustainable at home isn’t always the big grand gestures. It is about putting habits into your life that benefit you and the environment. Pay attention to what you are currently doing, make a list of the changes you can easily make, and start there. Whether it’s not using single-use products anymore, taking your own water jug out with you instead of buying a plastic bottle of water, or opting for walking over using the car for a shorter journey, it’s entirely up to you.
It’s the frequency of the changes you make and the consistency you implement them that will make the difference. Start small and then work your way towards bigger more sustainable choices without giving up on anything you love or compromising on your quality of life.