As your trusted guide to creating a better tomorrow, we felt it was our duty to put together a list of Earth-minded New Year’s resolutions for you. Ready? In 2015, you should resolve to make zero garbage, eat 100% vegan and never drive a car again.
Easy peezy, right? Wait, come back! We’re just kidding! As any lifestyle expert can attest, the New Year’s resolutions most likely to become habit are those that aim for incremental change. The good news is, our collective commitment to small actions can have a big effect.
We’d like to offer our some resolutions that will help us build a brighter future together. Start small until you feel the habit take hold, then turn it up by increasing the frequency or intensity of your endeavors! Be sure to share your progress (and advice) here by using #FollowTheFrog and #NewYearsResolution on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram—the journey is better when we walk together.
1) Walk, bike, or carpool to work at least once a week. Or work at home! (yes, you can show this to your boss)
If only everyone would turn their cars into giant lawn ornaments and never drive again! But not only is that unrealistic, for some commuters it’s not even possible.Still, consider these stats: if you drive 30 miles to your office, even in a fuel-efficient car, you’re releasing 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (C02, one of several greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming) into the atmosphere annually. Walking, biking or carpooling once a week reduces your C02 output by more than 2,000 pounds over the course of a year! Increase frequency once you find a routine that works.
2) Love to garden? Switch to native plants that save water and protect local biodiversity.
The typical suburban lawn consumes 10,000 gallons of water each year (not including rainwater). If you replace grass with native plants, you could cut your water use—and water bill—by up to two-thirds, while maintaining habitat for local wildlife. And, not only are native plants more resistant to local pests, they tend to grow deeper root systems that help prevent erosion.
3) Light your home efficiently.
You’ve probably heard the buzz—governments around the world are phasing out incandescent light bulbs in favor of energy-efficient options. So now is the perfect time to make the switch to LED lights, which last 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs (and don’t contain mercury like CFLs). Although LEDs cost more up front, the investment will benefit your pocketbook, as well as the planet, over time since water is required to produce electricity. Here’s a cool tool to help you calculate your lighting usage.
4) Go Vegetarian Once a Week.
Livestock farming causes about 18 percent of current greenhouse gas emissions—more than every plane, train and automobile on the planet combined, according to this report released by the U.N. If you just can’t face the prospect of life without beef stew or chicken teriyaki, then start small: go vegetarian—or vegan, if you can—one day a week. In addition to curtailing greenhouse gas emissions, you’ll save water: for every burger you pass up, you’ll save 634 gallons of H20! Another profound benefit from passing up animal products: it takes 15 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef, which can fill the bellies of two people for a few hours, but the same amount of grain can feed more than 13 people for a day. In other words, the less meat you eat, the more grain you’re making available to humans. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, about one in nine people on Earth do not have enough food to lead a healthy, active life.
5) Buy only the food you need.
UK residents throw away nearly half of their food—some 7 million tons of edible food and drink each year. And the US wastes 40 percent of the food it grows, produces and sells! That’s a crying shame, when you think about the resources that go into producing it (25 percent of all the freshwater in the US, for instance)—and worse, the number of people suffering hunger and malnutrition.
Moreover, nearly all of that uneaten food ends up rotting in landfill, accounting for a hefty share of methane emissions. (Methane is another greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.)
If all that doesn’t move you to change your food buying habits, consider this: the typical American family of four loses $1,365 to $2,275 per year on food they never eat. Wouldn’t you rather save that money and take a vacation?
6) Carry your own glass or stainless steel water bottle—and just say no to plastic!
Between 1994 and 2013, the UK bottled water market grew from 690 million liters to just over 2.3 billion. The average American consumes 32 gallons of bottled water per year, which adds up to approximately 1,500 plastic water bottles per second. It takes an estimated three liters of water just to produce and transport a single bottle. Then there’s the oil used: the manufacture of every ton of polyethylene terephthalate, which is typically what water bottles are made of, generates 3 tons of carbon dioxide. Sadly, 66 million of these bottles end up in landfills or in the ocean.
Don’t forget, drinking from plastic bottles poses health risks too. So use a reusable container and take your tap water with you.
7) Drop a brick in your toilet.
If all the old toilets in the US were replaced with water-efficient models, we could collectively save 520 billion gallons of water per year—that’s the equivalent to the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls in a 12-day period. Can’t switch out your old water-hogging toilet? No problem! By placing a brick—or a half-gallon plastic jug filled with sand, marbles or rocks—inside the tank, you can save 2.5 gallons of water daily, or 75 gallons per month. And while you’re at it, check for any leaks from your tank by adding a few drops of food coloring to the tank when it is in resting mode. If any coloring leaches into the toilet, replace the rubber flapper (the part that lifts open in the tank when you flush).
8) Don’t run the tap.
Shutting off the faucet while you shave, brush your teeth and lather up in the shower can save up to 75 gallons per week. And by taking shorter showers with a water-saving showerhead, you can reduce your water consumption by 40 percent.
9) Watch your wardrobe.
In the UK, the average consumer wastes £142 a year on items they never wear. The average American spends $1,800 a year on clothes and shoes and goes through 35 pounds of new cotton clothing annually. Conventionally grown cotton uses more insecticides than any other single crop, accounting for more than 10 percent of total pesticide use and nearly 25 percent of insecticide use worldwide—all of which potentially puts the health of farm workers at risk. But not all organic cotton is created equal, so shop wisely: it could take more than 520 gallons of irrigation water to grow a pound of organic cotton fiber in India, while organic cotton grown in Brazil is almost entirely rain-fed. When you consider, too, the prevalence of human rights abuses in clothing factories abroad, it just makes sense to stop buying new clothing and shop vintage. Just think, you could up your fashion game with a real 50s fedora or a silk 70s shift and be kind the Earth and her people.
10) Donate to the Rainforest Alliance
One of the simplest ways to amplify the benefits of your new year’s resolutions is to support organizations like the Rainforest Alliance that work for sustainable transformation on the ground. We have a proven track record over 25+ years of working with communities to protect biodiversity, curb climate change and improve livelihoods all over the world, like the forest community of San Juan de Cheni, which has worked hard to regain its footing after Peru’s violent civil conflict.