Why it’s time to go greener…

Having recently watched David Attenborough’s new documentary “A Life on Our Planet” on Netflix, I feel extremely inspired and compelled to try and live a more sustainable life. Before watching his documentary, I had already started making little changes at home to reduce my carbon footprint; buying more plants, getting a wormery for my small garden and changing to energy-saving lightbulbs. However, after watching David’s emotional plea to the world to act now as it may not be too late, it really struck a chord with me that it’s not just big commercial firms that can make the difference, but individually, we can make an impact too. Some may question “What is the point in making changes when we individually make up such a little proportion of the overall global carbon footprint?” But the simplest answer in response to that question is, in fact, when we do actively contribute to lowering the average carbon emissions burned, informing and educating others to do the same, all whilst supporting policy changes and advocating for green businesses, then yes, a single person can make quite the difference.

Especially in today’s climate wherein more and more people are now working remotely instead of going into the office, people are individually using more energy to heat or cool their houses than the energy used by an office building that heats everyone. The energy and bandwidth people use on things like video calls translates to CO2 emissions, meaning that computer and internet usage aren’t without consequences. Moreover, materials and transportation to ship supplies or equipment to remote workers burn environmental resources, along with a host of other negative impacts. So, although there are many positive impacts highlighted in the media about remote working such as reduced commuting saving on gas  and electricity, less paper used, etc., it is important to realise that we are still creating a footprint and so we ought to make it as green as possible!

Therefore, I thought I’d share some of the tips I have researched and found along the way that I now do/use myself and hope that others may feel inspired to do the same!

There are so many things that we do on the daily that we wouldn’t even typically think would waste a lot of energy or use up a lot of unncessery resources. But, after researching everything more deeply, I’ve now found that these tips have really helped me to do that little bit more to be greener and I hope they’ve proven handy to some of you!