When we talk about reducing the environmental impact of people’s lives, we tend to imagine a world devoid of comfort and condemned to sacrifices and sacrifices.
Although it is true that something must be given up, if you want to live more sustainably, this does not necessarily mean total regression to the wild.
Often a few simple habits are enough to reduce your weight on the environment. Small but significant gestures that will allow you to achieve your goal, without having to deprive yourself of anything.
Action n.1 for a sustainable life: Pay attention to what you buy
The first step to reduce your environmental impact is to acquire awareness of the problem you are trying to fight and make choices in everyday life that aim to solve it.
You can start with simple things, such as consuming seasonal fruits and vegetables in Km0, or local food producers.
Green fashion is also making its way into clothing, offering alternative solutions to industrial clothing production.
5 Ways to Reduce Your Impact
Starting to direct your purchases towards brands committed to the care of the environment, allow you to enter a virtuous circle of consumers, which encourage companies to do their part.
Some good choices to make are for example to prefer organic and natural products, which guarantee the non-use of pesticides and reduce the consumption of meat and fish.
Basically you have to pay attention to the sustainability of a product in the same way as you control the price or expiry date. In order to fill the cart with everything you need, but keeping in mind that every purchase has its own burden on the environment. The goal is to reduce that weight.
Action n.2 for a sustainable life: Takes up as little space as possible
One of the biggest problems facing the planet is overpopulation. We are almost 8 billion people living on Earth and each of us occupies a space on it with our own existence.
A human being can occupy space in several ways:
With your own person
With their own objects
With his home
With his movements
With his purchases
There are disciplines such as minimalism or decluttering that are based precisely on the concept of owning as little as possible to have a happier life.
In a sense, such approaches also help to have a cleaner environment. Getting rid of all superfluous objects makes it possible to understand concretely how little you really need to live. By reducing the objects in their possession, the space they occupied will be freed, reducing their footprint on the planet.
There are places in the world that have suffered a strong depopulation, some Italian municipalities are almost deserted.
We hear little about it but often realities very close to us on which it would be worth repopulating. A wise choice, to narrow our impact, is to consider the renovation of existing premises, rather than cement further. This is a less daily action than the others, but it is worth keeping in mind when you decide to take such an important step.
Deciding to travel by public transport is another way to take up less space. Considering the amount of cars that carry one or at most two passengers: they occupy a much larger space than a scenario where everyone chooses to move by bus for example.
Setting the table in a sustainable way
Action n.3 for a sustainable life: Do not consume more than necessary
The planet is not able to sustain all the world’s population with the resources it has.
There is a day called "Overshoot Day", which changes from year to year. It is the day when a simple calculation establishes, at an illustrative level, the exact moment in which humanity consumes entirely the resources produced by the planet throughout the year.
In 2021 it was July 29. In 1972 it was December 10. In 2000 it had already arrived on September 22.
Exponential population growth, excess productivity, intensive livestock farming, and rising wealth and living standards have affected this severe resource crisis.
Pay attention to the consumption of water and light and ensure that you adequately meet your nutritional needs, without excesses, to have a healthy and balanced diet
Limiting consumption is not just a way to have less impact on the environment in terms of the use of raw materials. It also means producing less garbage, another factor that has a very negative impact on the ecological footprint.
Action No 4 for a sustainable life: Do not waste resources
One of the situations in which the practice of not wasting anything has wonderfully taken hold is that of catering.
In recent times the greatest starred chefs have embraced the idea of a kitchen without waste, in continuity the tradition of poor cuisine, where nothing was discarded.
It is an important example of how we need to revive that tradition, in every area, because we can no longer afford more waste.
Sustainable glass companies
Action n.5 for a sustainable life: Set a good example
"Be the change you want to see in the world," how many times have you heard this phrase? But there’s a reason it’s used so often.
Changing yourself is certainly less complicated than changing the world, with the possibility of being an inspiration for someone else.
Many people are moving to do their part: there are those who collect garbage while jogging, those who clean the beaches while on vacation, more and more people make the separate collection.
The actions that can be done to help the environment are many and often are like good deeds: they are contagious.
Some companies such as Legambiente that organize expeditions to clean natural areas count more and more volunteers every year. This shows that many more people are taking an interest in environmental issues, imitating the example of those who did it before them.
Even in schools, a great deal of work has been done to educate children on the subject of the environment, producing a generation more sensitive to certain issues, so much so as to explode in events such as the Fridays for Future.
Thank you for reading this article, we hope it has been useful. If you are looking for other eco-friendly curiosities visit our blog. If you are in the mood for green shopping try to take a look at the products in our store.
Article edited by Renato Sarlo
