Environmental sustainability doesn’t mean living without comforts and luxuries, it means just being more considerate with your resource consumption and attempting to reduce unnecessary waste.
Let’s bring sustainability home in few easy steps! For example, cutting down the amount of water you waste, changing a light bulb and cutting down your trips to the dump will all help the environment breathe easier. Being eco-friendly is not so out of reach as you may think, as little steps make a big impact. Make more conscious daily decisions and up your environmentally friendly game! As with many other lifestyle choices that are considered trendy or just ‘fads’, there are many misconceptions about an eco-friendly lifestyle; that it’s for so called tree-huggers and that it’s expensive and inconvenient.
Not true.
These steps actually save you money. Go on give the planet a little helping hand and feel some more change in your pocket at the end of the year!
Compost It
Do you have that little compost bin that gets ignored, don’t worry it’s not too late to rectify this. Even better, investing in a compost heap will save money and get rid of all your food scraps while maintaining your garden’s soil health and it stops belching methane (greenhouse gas) being released into the atmosphere. The ultimate home recycler.
Residual Heat Cooking
Turn your oven off five minutes prior to the meal being ready to allow the food to continue cooking while saving on energy- Tip this works really well with pasta dishes. You might do this already and may not have realised you were helping the environment.
Green Cleaning
Replace that kitchen roll with tea towels or old rags to mop up spills. Bin your kitchen cleansing wipes unless they are biodegradable When you make a purchase, consider the item’s life expectancy: How long can the item be used and how many times, if the answer is one- don’t purchase.
Choose green household cleaning agents or homemade agents (some great tips from Good housing Keeping on using ingredients such as lemon, baking soda and vinegar to clean) as they help reduce air pollution and help you avoid more harmful chemicals.
Go Meatless
Go meat free once a week ‘Meatless Monday’ can help reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fossil fuels and fresh water. Did you know seventy percent of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed to farm cows? Meat production results in more carbon emissions than any other protein product.
World Land Trust and Carbon Balanced Operations
VOYA has helped protect over 6,098 metres squared of world wildlife habitat by cutting its carbon emissions and supporting the
World Land Trust (WLT), an international conservation charity which protects the world’s most biologically important and threatened habitats acre by acre.
In 2017, VOYA committed to carbon balance 72.60 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from energy consumption associated with general operations and business travel. This has enabled the company to offset its unavoidable emissions through WLT’s Carbon Balanced Programme which has helped to protect wildlife habitat in Numbami in Ecuador.
Sustainable Fashion
You can be styling ethical and eco friendly all at the same time, hallelujah! There are more and more organic and fair trade clothing brands appearing which is fantastic, even brands like H & M have a conscious collection, making it an affordable choice! There are also some new ethical Irish clothing labels worth checking out at the moment too. HERE
We are Islanders are an example of designers are said to be leading the way in sustainable Irish fashion. Think salmon leather and organic Irish linens teamed with vibrant prints. You can find them in {MADE} in Powerscourt.
Don’t forget:
‘’Sustainable processes are kinder to the environment – after oil, the fashion industry is the second largest polluter – and to the people involved in the production process.’’
Turn off The Tap
We all do it, it’s a bad habit that happens daily, we leave taps running while washing our faces and while brushing our teeth, doing the dishes after dinner etc.
It’s no inconvenience to stop this really and it saves a lot of resources in the long run. Get on it!
Carpool to Work
This is a no brainer, do you have work colleagues that live close by, take turns? It’s saves on petrol and means fewer cars on the road which means less carbon emissions. Plus it will make you all more punctual.
Unplug Everything
A lot of appliances use up electricity even when they’re switched off. Set top boxes (like Google TV and Apple TV) are the worst culprits, but DVD players, modems, and computers also use up electricity while plugged in.
Reduce Your Book-Print
Invest in a Kindle! Simples.
Line Dry
If you have a clothes dryer, there’s a good chance it uses more energy than anything else in your home. Use your clothes horse or the line outside, or just hang wet laundry on clothes hangers around the house. There is fierce drying in that weather…
Change that Lightbulb
Another simple solution! Replacing your current bulbs with CFL, or “compact fluorescent light.” These are more expensive up front BUT they use a quarter of the energy and last 10 times longer!!
Use Less Food
Waste not want not, your mother was right. Throwing out gone off food what is more frustrating! Keep an eye on what’s the back of the fridge and needs to be used reach for that, get more creative with your dishes to ensure nothing goes to waste.
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