Last year, I made a personal commitment to examine every area of my life for sustainable improvements, and to talk about my decisions and encourage others to start or accelerate their own sustainability journeys. Since my last blog, I have searched for ways to accelerate my sustainability actions beyond the basics that I was already doing — recycling, composting and offsetting my carbon emissions from flights (though that’s been unnecessary this past year).
And ever the challenge for me, I looked for ways to share these changes and encourage others to make more sustainable choices.
As an avid reader, I looked for ways to make this more sustainable as well. My first stop for any book is my local library — using the app, I’m able to download audio or e-book versions of most books. My library is also great about taking recommendations for purchase. For those times when I prefer a paper copy (particularly for children’s books), I look first for a used copy, then to my local independent bookstore. Most people I know are already fairly aware of sustainable alternatives to ordering a book from Amazon, especially in current times when small businesses need support. However, many friends weren’t aware that they could listen to many audiobooks via their library’s app, so I was happy to share this.
I continued to reduce the amount of paper mail I received, unsubscribing from catalogs, magazines and opting for paperless billing everywhere. But upon learning of the carbon footprint of emails, I began to unsubscribe from all those extra emails and delete old dormant accounts. This pays dividends in reducing clutter, saving time and reducing the risk of identity theft as well. This is easy to share and talk about, since no one likes spam or identity theft, and the carbon footprint of emails is interesting to many.
Speaking of dividends, I undertook a lengthy process to divest my personal investments of fossil fuel investments and put the proceeds into renewable and clean energy funds. This was something I had wanted to do for years but had never found the time. Spurred by my new sustainability commitment, I finally devoted the time to researching the new funds and placing the trades. This was a little trickier to share, since I am not a financial advisor, despite my years of experience in financial services. So I mentioned the process in general terms and shared links to some well-researched articles about some of the funds I considered.
Residential energy use accounts for about 20% of all emissions in the US, so I have looked for ways to reduce this. I’ve had a smart thermostat for years, which helps to manage my energy use. Over the past year, I’ve changed to LED lightbulbs which use 75% less energy, and I’ve also made a conscious effort to leave lights off and use natural light whenever possible. The biggest change is that I recently switched my electricity supply to renewable energy.
Going forward, I’d like to measure my lifetime carbon footprint. The average person can make an impact through energy use, food and transportation. For most of my life, I’ve been a mostly vegetarian/pescatarian, so the carbon impact of my diet has been less than that of a typical omnivore. I eat seafood a couple of times per week, drink oat milk instead of dairy milk, and shop as much as I can at the farmer’s market. I buy mostly organic and also make efforts to shop from the bulk section to reduce the amount of packaging used. And I am fastidious about avoiding waste — we eat a lot of leftovers.
However, thinking back to the large amounts of travel I’ve done over my lifetime, I know the largest piece of my emissions pie is transportation. I have lived in a city most of my life and even before I knew the impact of driving, I avoided it because I didn’t like it. But I have traveled a lot, both for work (in the days before companies were offsetting emissions) and for pleasure — years of flights back and forth to visit family and friends and to explore the world. And those emissions are still out there, even in cases where I paid to offset them. So my next big project is to do a calculation of my lifetime emissions and then pay to have them removed.
I know there is more I can be doing — both with my actions and my words — to ensure that every decision is made through the lens of sustainability.
What actions have you taken that you would recommend to others?
