Start Where You Are
Happy New Year lovely Lil people! We hope you have had a lovely festive break with family & friends.
As the dust settles and we look forward to what 2019 has in store for us it’s a good time to take stock of where we are now and where we want to be going in the coming year(s). For many folk this might include being fitter, getting better life balance, a career change and for some I hope it can also include being greener?
For any goal it’s important to understand where you are starting from, not least so you can see change over time. There’s some great tools out there to help you take stock and measure your impact. The World Wildlife Fund has a Footprint Calculator which calculates your carbon footprint score based on a 5 minute questionnaire and offers tips for improvement.
You can use the Global Footprint calculator to work out how many planet Earths we would need if everyone lived as you do. Earth Overshoot Day (the day on which it is calculated humans used up all the resources the planet can replace in a year) landed on 1st August in 2018. What can you do to stretch that towards 31st December?
If diet and food feature in your New Years Resolutions then take a look at the carbon footprint of your different food options
If everyone lived as we do in the U.K. Earth Overshoot Day would be May 8th, not even half a year!
For inspiration as to what you can change try running your own home audit. Choose a room and look at what you can reduce, swap or improve. Consider all the elements of the room eg windows (fit double or secondary glazing? add heavier curtains or addional blinds?), floor coverings and doors (draft excluder for winter maybe?), use up plastic containers of products and swap for natural non plastic, switch chemical cleaners for natural alternatives, Review your waste - what are you sending to landfill, can you reduce it - stop using, buy without packaging, Avoid single use items? Send it somewhere more productive like the compost, Council recycling, secondhand store? and so on. Look out for our detailed home audit checklist coming soon.
You could also try decluttering - another kind of audit of your stuff and a great way to streamline your life. Non of this is about giving up things you need, more about identifying what is truly important & necessary to you. It helps create both physical and mental space. Be realistic about how long any kind of audit may take, perhaps choose one area at a time. Zero Waste Scotland created a useful guide on where to start with decluttering and what to do with your unwanted items. The doyen of decluttering Marie Kondo also has a series running on Netflix if you really want to go for it!
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make”. Jane Goodall