Earth is the only home we have ever known and it is the only home we will ever know. Nowadays, the issue of climate change is saturating the media.
Earth is the only home we have ever known and it is the only home we will ever know. For far too long, it was all too easy to take our planet home for granted. Nowadays, however, it seems that the issue of climate change saturates old and new media. But when we speak of climate change, the first things that come to most people’s minds are melting glaciers and endangered species.
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Fortunately, working to save this beautiful planet we call home doesn’t have to mean renouncing modernity and retiring to some treetop monastery in the Amazonas. What it takes is small changes in our daily habits that mount up to a big difference for the environment. Here are four environmental solutions that you can complete from the comfort of your home. Most of us are social distancing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start combating climate change and start taking care of our home planet.
The “cloud” is not some ethereal place that hovers in the sky: all of your photos and files are stored on hardware somewhere. And storing them uses a lot of energy, much more than storing them on our own devices. It’s been calculated using the lower assessment that saving 100GB per year in the cloud results in a carbon footprint of 0.2 tonnes of CO2. Some companies, like Microsoft, are turning to renewable energy to power their data centers, reducing the footprint of their cloud storage.
Research your storage provider to see whether they use or are moving towards clean energy. Also, take some time to go through what you’ve already saved in the cloud, and delete anything you don’t need. Even if your provider is doing the right thing, you can help reduce energy needs even more by ensuring you don’t have unnecessary files.
Ecosia is a search tool that plants trees with the profits of our internet browsing. It doesn’t cost you anything except a few minutes of your time to switch over, and yet you’ll contribute to reforestation projects that help sequester CO2, provide animal habitats, and support communities with fair employment. To date, they’ve planted over 60 million trees in 18 different countries. Ecosia is a certified B-Corporation, they’re powered 100% by renewable energy, and they don’t sell their users data to advertisers.
Click here to download their app on the App Store or Google Play. For your laptop or PC, download the extension for your browser from their website.
Now is the time that many of us are seeing even greater value in reusable products and knowing how to make things ourselves. Packaged food and disposable items can sell out, but reusables are yours for many years, and your skills can be used forever. You can always count on them and feel great that you’re more self-reliant as well as eco-friendly.
If you have some extra time and want to replace an item in your household with a reusable alternative, you can either buy it or make it yourself. You can experiment with making your own foods like homemade bread, oat milk, muesli, vegetable soups, potato chips, fruit cake, biscuits, and ice cream. Or get into making your own cleaners, sanitizers, cosmetics, moisturizers, and toothpaste.
It’s a fact that consuming less red meat will reduce your environmental impact. And especially if you eat a lot of processed and fatty meats, reducing them is very beneficial for your health, as is consuming fewer grains in favor of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Vegetarian proteins are healthy and in most cases, require less environmental degradation than animal products. There are plenty of plant-based options in the supermarkets now, and buying cans of beans and chickpeas is far less expensive than steak and chops. They’re also nutritious and just as satisfying as beef.
It’s really important to start traveling, shopping, and living in a sustainable way. That means making a number of changes in your own house and purchase decisions to ensure that you are reducing your negative footprint on the environment. Whether you’re doing this for your household or your business, take some time to research these ideas and action what you can. Click here to learn more about our member hotels & resorts sustainability efforts!
A year that went by slow and fast and made us reflect about everything. We know that because of the pandemic year 2020 was full of uncertainty
2020 was the year of activism. Companies & consumers know that big environmental problems are more serious than ever and are acting on them.
INSPIRE is Eco Hotels & Resorts' first annual event for Member Hotels only. Make sustainable travel the norm, not the exception!