7 Tips for a sustainable 2022
Happy (sustainable) New Year: as the New Year approaches, many of us have New Year resolutions and great plans. Our resolution for 2022 is clear, namely to make our everyday lives more sustainable and eco-friendlier. This is a matter close to your heart as well, but you need some inspiration? This is the reason why we have collected seven tips for you on how you can make your 2022 sustainable and eco-friendly.
Consume sustainably
In the holiday season, a lot of things are purchased and then exchanged again at a later date. There is a plethora of possibilities how you can make your everyday life more sustainable, more climate friendly and full of more awareness. Sustainable consumption does not only mean purchasing from regional or organic sources, it means questioning one’s own consumption, one’s own purchasing behavior – particularly in the context of Fast Fashion, Food Waste & Co. – and when so doing, asking yourself whether you really need a new Smartphone, a new monitor or a new outdoor-jacket. If you buy less, you are helping to reduce the mountains of electronic, plastic and textile waste. After all, the most sustainable product is the product that was never made.
A green thumb for the environment.
As urbanization continues to spread, a growing number of green spaces are being swallowed up. This translates into fewer plants, which convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Starting your own small Urban Garden in your own or outside your own four walls is one of the possibilities to boost the rapidly depleting population of plants in the world. You can choose flowers, cacti and other decorative houseplants, or grow your own fruit, vegetables and herbs, to chalk yourself up a bonus on the eco-friendliness scale. Or are you planning to move house? In the residential sector, alternative housing projects such as multi-generation houses or restored buildings are counteracting the urban sprawl and thus helping to stop natural landscapes being built up.
Pay attention to your digital footprint.
Do you regularly stream films and series or listen to your favorite music using a well-known provider? Then you are in good company – and even so we should still consider the environment when we are doing this. Digital streaming services and the use of the Internet generate CO2 – enormously. The Server farms themselves, the cooling of them, the wires and the cables and the production of the end devices, with which we stream and surf, and the electricity they consume, all produce an enormous CO2 footprint. In 2018 alone, Video-Streaming was responsible for more than 300 million tons of CO2 equivalents. But this does not mean that you have to immediately cancel your favorite subscription: with lots of music and Video-Streaming services you can set the quality of the transmission.
Beware of single-use plastics.
Since the middle of last year, the SUPD – die Single Use Plastic Directives – has applied in the EU. This means, among other things, that product packaging has to indicate that the product in question contains plastic. On the packaging of around 15 single-use plastic products, such as for example beverage cups, food containers, tobacco products, wet wipes and feminine hygiene products, there is now a pictogram with the inscription „Product contains plastic“ („Plastic in Product“). This should indicate whether the corresponding product is made completely or partly of plastic. Out tip is to search for alternatives to products such as these. Buy things with a greater awareness, deliberately avoiding fossil-based single-use plastic in products of everyday life.
Travel – but do so gently
The best sustainability tip when it comes to travelling has to be– to avoid planes as far as possible. But when we are travelling the choice of our means of transport is not the only decisive thing. There is also the question of how we travel. If we get hit by the travel bug in 2022, there are also eco-friendly and sustainable ways to travel – namely what is known as soft tourism. By this we understand travelling as considerately as possible. Anyone who travels in this way, will make only a minimal impact on their holiday destination. Instead of staying in large hotel complexes with all-inclusive-catering, in soft tourism you choose a local accommodation. Instead of taking part in big tours, you go on journeys of discovery on your own. Instead of buying cheap souvenirs, you support artists from the region for example.
Minimize electricity consumption.
Although it is a tip we are very familiar with, we always seem to forget that saving electricity saves on money and is also better for the environment. Every day we charge our Smartphones, switch on the telly and our laptops – and we surf continuously in the Internet. In those periods in which we are immersed in our digital worlds, we are consuming more electricity than ever– often from fossil fuels. A sensible New Year's resolution for environmental protection is therefore to consciously save electricity – for example through the use of timers or by deliberately switching off your devices instead of leaving these in Stand-by mode.
Sharing is Caring.
Do we really all need our own car, our own lawn mower or drill? If you think about it, you will realize that there are umpteen things which we use only very rarely and yet almost everyone has these lying around. The best example has to be: a car. Most of the time the car is parked in front of the house or in front of the office and is not being used. An even more sustainable solution would be, however, to quite simply share all of these things or to resort to official sharing models. Like almost all of the tips mentioned here, this behavior preserves the environment as well as our financial resources.
So: no matter what resolutions you have, every step counts and every further step already means this has become a habit. One thing is clear for 2022: #ItsInOurHands.
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