How I cut a third off my carbon footprint in 6 months (it was actually fun!)
Guest blog by Emily Dunne original can be viewed here.
This journey
starts in October, when I joined the On Purpose Associate Programme, started at
my first placement at King’s College London and took the WWF carbon footprint test for the first time.
Horrified, I learnt that annually I was using 200% of my share
of the world’s resources.
That same
month we were flooded with news of an upcoming climate catastrophe following
the IPCC special report and changing jobs had left me with a new work-life
balance, with both time and mental space to think about what it might be
possible to change.
So I set
myself a challenge: Every month for the next year I am going to change
one lifestyle factor to be more sustainable, and I’m going to try and maintain
(or grow) the change for the rest of the year, in what will hopefully be an
exponential curve towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
Since then, I
have made changes to how I get around, how I eat, how I supply my house with
basic essentials and even how I dress. I’m healthier, happier and feel more
connected to my local area. I’m also more informed about environmental issues
and the incredible work being done to tackle them globally.
It’s now six
months in and when I recently re-took the WWF carbon footprint test I got a score of 125%. I’d
never have guessed it could be both fun and easy to make that scale of change.
This is what
surprised me most: it doesn’t need to be hard, it doesn’t need to be a
sacrifice. There
are a growing number of social enterprises making sustainable decisions
genuinely more convenient and more fun than their less-green alternatives, and
I’ve shared some of the ones I’ve liked below.
The first
thing I had to do was pick where to start. At a basic level, my criteria was:
1. What
is easy?
2. What is
high impact?
3. What
is fun?
By focusing on
things that are easy and fun, I’ve built momentum for the things that are
harder, like divesting pensions, and looking for alternatives to short-haul
flights. The easy stuff is a great place to start; there are so many things
that you change once and they’re done for good.
Month 1: October
& Commuting
Switching my
commute from bus to bike: It’s now April and I’m still cycling every day!
I have saved
at least £60 per month on bus fares; I have gained 30 mins per
day in commute time because cycling is genuinely the quickest way for
me to get to work; I have lost weight and feel far fitter than
I’d anticipated from an additional 30 minutes of daily cycling; and finally, I
feel a lot more connected to my local area, I notice new spaces as
I cycle past them in a way I never did on the bus.
Verdict: Easy, high impact and fun!
Month 2:
November & Home
Changing
household habits and spending patterns, from energy providers to toiletries.
This is one I’ve added to every month, and I’m still collecting
recommendations: The full list of things I’ve tried and would recommend is
below if you’re interested!
To highlight
the real game changers:
Sanitary
products switched
to Thinx in a completely revolutionary move. They are
elegant, machine washable and so comfortable, I genuinely feel like one of the
roller skating, skydiving women in those awful ads!
Energy
provider switched to Bulb, which has only ended up costing us 20p
more per month for a fully renewable energy plan and some of my friends who
switched are saving money.
We now
have greener versions of bulky items like laundry detergent,
washing up liquid and toilet paper delivered: It’s cheaper, more
convenient and the Who Gives A
Crap toilet paper for one is more fun!
And possibly
my favourite sustainability tip of the year has
been trying to wear a new outfit every day – without duplication – for
as long as possible, to stretch and make you be a bit more
creative with
your wardrobe.
After 80 days
and counting: I've rediscovered all kinds of stuff in the back of my wardrobe
and found new combinations of things that work together, so I’m not
remotely tempted to go shopping and buy more clothes. I've also been
(I think!) dressing better, because I'm thinking about it not just throwing on
any old thing. Finally, I've sketched my outfit each day, to make sure I don't
duplicate, and so have the beginnings of a little outfits menu, which is nice
and, who knows, might make me dress better in future!
Verdict: Varied, but on the whole easy, high
impact and fun!
Month 3:
December & Christmas
Reducing the
impact of Christmas by minimising stuff and emphasising experiences in gifts.
Buying
memberships and tickets to events rather than stuff is a great way to gift memories,
while upcycling and crafting is a great way to create
something meaningful and unique.
Our work Secret
Santa this year was capped at £5 and had to come from a
charity shop, and we couldn’t believe what amazing presents people found!
I also
made homemade crackers: cheaper, more sustainable and genuinely
made everyone happier - imagine getting a lovely silk scarf in your cracker
rather than another plastic keyring?
Verdict: Definitely easy and fun
Month 4:
January & Food
Thinking more
sustainably about what I choose to eat, where I buy it from, what it’s packaged
in and how much is wasted.
Trying to eat
more seasonally, with
fortnightly Oddbox deliveries
of fruit and vegetables, sourced from local farms from the ‘wonky’ produce
otherwise wasted because it’s not ‘perfect’ enough to be sold to supermarkets.
Wonky fruit and veg are genuinely charming: Favourites so far include three
pronged kiwis, a cauliflower the size of a football, and a slightly small but
entirely delicious pineapple.
Moving all
dried produce (rice, grains, pasta, nuts) into jars, beautifying my kitchen
cupboards and laying the groundwork for buying plastic free from local
bulk refill stores. Zero waste lifestyle blogs are full of great resources,
including this handy
searchable map of refill shops where you can buy food
unpackaged to bring home in your own containers. My local shop is a community
run food coop, which sells at cost price and encourages shoppers to volunteer –
amazing!
This one is
definitely a journey but there’s so much reward in being thoughtful
about food. Some things I’m still working on include: bringing in lunch to
work from home consistently, pushing my vegetarianism a bit closer to veganism,
which I’ve started by treating cheese as more of a delicious treat than a daily
staple, and just cooking better food: Anna Jones has been a great help here on seasonal
recipes especially!
Verdict: High impact and mostly fun!
Month 5:
February & Finance
Looking into
switching my pension to more ethical funds. This has been a daunting and opaque
process for me, but I’ve been lucky in the support of some very knowledgeable
friends.
Verdict: Definitely high impact but so far
neither easy nor especially fun.
Month 6: March
& Networks
The Network
Effect: Sharing ideas, starting conversations and hopefully getting more people
thinking about the small things they can change.
One of the
challenges I’ve always had with this stuff is even if I am able to live
completely carbon neutral with negligible environmental impact, I’m just one
person on a planet of billions. But that’s what stories are for, so I’ve
written this post in the hopes that a few of you will get something useful out
of my experiences, and maybe between us we’ll have more of an impact.
What could you
change within your own lifestyle, which might be easy, impactful and fun?
And on that
vein, it helps to think about your network:
Where are you
connected, where do you have influence, who do you know who can
change things?
Last month I
ran a workshop for my division at King’s to map our ongoing work against the UN
Sustainable Development Goals, so we can amplify and celebrate positive contributions
and reflect on how to reduce negative impacts. The output is an ambitious
sustainability plan encompassing the work of about 50 people and the workshop
is now ready to be rolled out across university – exciting stuff!
Sometimes all
it takes is asking the right person the right question at the right time. Our
office fruit is delivered by Oddbox, this year graduations went paperless, our
last teambuilding afternoon was a Good Gym walk to volunteer at a foodbank.
What could
your workplace switch, and can you help make it happen?
Verdict: Relatively easy, pretty fun, and
impact… well, you tell me!
Links
and tips
Energy
provider: Switching to Bulb has only ended up costing us 20p
more per month. (If you sign up using the link above we both get £50 credit.)
Laundry and
washing up liquid switched
to Ecover’s 15L refill boxes:
·
More
convenient, as it’s delivered to your home and much, much slower to run out
·
Cheaper per
litre
·
Fewer plastic
bottles thrown away
Sanitary
products: Switching
to Thinx.
·
They ship from
America, so watch out for customs fees if you buy direct; alternatively you can
now find them on ASOS
·
They also sell
reusable tampon applicators
Toilet
paper by Who Gives A
Crap.
·
I've recently
switched to these guys and now get toilet paper delivered (so convenient) in
plastic free packaging (which is colourful and lovely), made from recycled
office paper (no trees harmed in the making).
·
It's quite a
bit more expensive per roll, but the rolls are double the length, so from my
initial experiment I think it's pretty much cost neutral. And they donate half
their profits to sanitation projects around the world!
Toiletries
·
Eco friendly
deodorant by Nuud
·
Lush shampoo
and conditioner bars, in reusable metal tins
·
Investing in a metal safety
razor, rather than using plastic ones
·
Bamboo
toothbrushes: I have one of these at the moment, but it’s a growing
market with loads to pick from!
Food and
kitchen:
·
Oddbox deliveries of
seasonal fruit and vegetables, sourced from local farms from the ‘wonky’
produce otherwise wasted because it’s not ‘perfect’ enough to be sold
to supermarkets.
Little habits:
·
“Landfill Bin”
is now written on the top of my kitchen bin, reminding us all to think twice
about whether something is recyclable - this has had a bigger impact than I
expected it to!
·
Make sure
you're using smile.amazon.co.uk if you use Amazon; they'll
donate a (tiny) portion of the profit from your purchases to a charity of your
choosing
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