Five Practical Ways for Families to Lessen Environmental Impact
Sustainability is a hot topic, and many of us are trying to make more mindful choices in our daily lives and adopt a more sustainable lifestyle. Here’s why it’s critical to consider your family’s environmental footprint, and what you can do to reduce it.
The Importance of Thinking About Your Footprint as a Family
Sustainability is vital to preserve the planet’s natural resources and slow the rate of global warming. We all have a role to play when it comes to reducing human impact on the environment.
If every household took steps to reduce their personal footprint, our combined efforts could help to significantly reduce air and water pollution and landfill waste, as well as safeguard the planet’s resources for future generations.
Here are five simple ways to reduce your family’s impact on the environment:
Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency is key to reducing your household’s environmental impact. You can start by replacing standard light bulbs with LED bulbs, which use far less electricity to emit the same light level.
When replacing household appliances, such as fridge-freezers and washing machines, always choose the most energy-efficient models in your budget, and switch off electrical appliances when not in use.
Ensuring your home is adequately insulated is also vital to make your home more energy efficient, and as a bonus, this will also help to reduce your energy bills.
Water Conservation
Though it may be hard to believe, water scarcity is a very real problem, and human water consumption is only increasing, which will lead to water shortages in the long term.
You can reduce your water consumption by being mindful of leaks around your home and fixing leaks, no matter how minor, as soon as you become aware of them. Switching to low-flow faucets and showerheads is another way to reduce water demand. You can also collect rainwater in a water butt and use it to water your garden, wash your car and even flush your toilet!
Transportation
How we get around can markedly affect our family’s environmental impact. For long journeys, such as family days out, train travel can be a more eco-friendly and efficient alternative to taking the car, as it significantly reduces your CO2 emissions.
For example, using a CO2 calculator shows that a train journey from Aberdeen to Newcastle would only generate around 10.79kg of CO2. In contrast, the same journey by car would take around five hours, generating an average of 36.15kg of CO2.
Sustainable Shopping
Where possible, choose products that have minimal or no packaging. Buying local or choosing sustainable businesses that offset their carbon emissions is another way to use your buying power as a consumer to help the environment.
Whether it’s furniture or clothing, it’s always preferable to buy durable, long-lasting items rather than cheaper alternatives that will need replacing sooner.
Education
Educating your kids on why it’s so important to consider the environment ensures that they appreciate their impact on the planet from a young age. By choosing to adopt a more eco-friendly way of life you teach your children that it’s something that is both important and achievable so they’ll be inspired to take what they’ve learned and build upon it as they grow. After all, children are the future of the planet!
In Summary
As we face the ongoing challenges of climate change and protecting the planet’s resources for the future of the human race, sustainability is more important than ever. Fortunately, there are steps we can all take to lessen our impact on the environment and to reduce our demand for the earth’s resources.