Sustainable New Year's Resolutions: Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

When thinking about making New Year's resolutions, why not think about ways to improve your life and the environment as well, by making sustainable resolutions?

The great thing about being sustainable is that it helps you achieve other resolutions like saving money and being more healthy.

Reduce your carbon footprint

First, let's make sure you understand what your carbon footprint means. In the simplest terms, your carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases you generate in your everyday life and the actions your take. What are greenhouse gases? These gases trap heat within the atmosphere, resulting in an increase in temperature on Earth and a warming global climate. The majority of greenhouse gases come from transportation, food, and housing. This includes your car, heating, travel, buying products that need to be shipped, and food, especially meat.

Start by calculating your carbon footprint by using the EPA's carbon footprint calculator: https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/

Ways to reduce your carbon footprint:

Personal Transportation

• Carpooling or using public transportation

• Drive less by walking, biking, or using electric vehicles

• Purchase an electric vehicle

• Fly Less and be choiceful of the trips you will be taking

Home

• Turn off the lights, especially during the day, and open the blinds to light and heat your home via the sun.

• Moderate the temperature in your home to be more efficient.

• Switch to LED lightbulbs

• Shut off or disconnect appliances when not in use, this includes laptops, printers, etc.

• Buy food produced locally and reduce your consumption of meat - healthy and saves money!

• Invest in renewable energy sources like solar power

Reduce Water Usage

• Make your showers shorter - try going for 5 minutes or even less.

• If you can reduce your shower head to a low-flow option, it will reduce water usage significantly.

• Don't leave the tap running when brushing teeth and shaving

• Fix any leaky taps or toilets to reduce water wastage

• Only run your dishwasher or washing machine when they are full

• Install rain barrels to collect rainwater for irrigation or other uses

• Reuse greywater - this is the wastewater generated from showers, baths, laundry and dishwashers

Food and Diet

• Reduce the amount of red meat in your diet. Start by eating vegetarian or vegan a few days a week and increase as best you can.

• If possible grow your own food, this can be as easy as an herb garden in your home to a veggie patch in your backyard. If you are not good at gardening, maybe pair up with a friend or community or neighborhood garden.

• Eat out less, this means cooking at home with local ingredients. Plan ahead to make it less stressful and keep you well organized.

• Don't be tempted to buy more than you need, regardless of how much money it might save. Bulk shopping may seem like a smart choice at first glance, but it's not when food ends up in the trash – you'll end up wasting your hard-earned cash along with throwing away precious resources. Get creative with the ingredients you do have or reuse leftovers.

Consumer shopping

• Swap disposables for reusables – Invest in reusable items like bags, bottles, straws, cutlery, and containers to reduce the amount of single-use plastics you consume.

• DIY when possible – Get creative with do-it-yourself projects instead of opting for store-bought products that add more waste

• Buy products that use minimal or zero plastic, styrofoam, or another wasteful packaging.

• Make a conscious effort to shop local and support your neighborhood businesses whenever you can - it's one of the best ways to reduce carbon emissions from transportation and shipping!

• Break away from the world of fast fashion - shop secondhand, create something new out of old clothes or hold off on buying unless it's a must-have item.

• Repair and reuse items - it can be less expensive and reduce the need to buy new products
  

Kick off the new year with the goals of sustainability! Reducing your carbon footprint can not only help our environment but also helps keeps us healthy, and active and saves money. It's a win-win for everyone! Happy New Year!