It's Earth Day and this year's theme is "Invest In Our Planet".
There are so many ways to tackle climate change and make our lives more sustainable these days. It's vital that we all do our part and even small changes will matter. We can't all be going out to buy expensive electric cars and installing solar panels BUT there are lots of easy, cheaper and still effective ways to help reduce waste and carbon emissions as well as balancing them out.
Personally I'm doing various things at home as well as in my business to try to help so I thought I'd share some of them here in case I can inspire anyone else to do the same if you aren't already ;)
Planting Trees
A new initiative I've implemented is to plant 100 trees for every client who books a brand photography package with me. I've started using Ecologi where I now have my very own forest (I donated 500 trees to myself to start off) and I can watch it grow and see the impact I'm having.
If you'd like to start your own forest, do so via this Ecologi link and we'll both receive some extra sparkly trees in our forests! And as it's Earth day, they're currently giving us both 100 instead of the usual 30 if you sign up with my link today, help me get my 1000 trees planted badge!! (You don't have to sign up to the subscription, you can choose a free pay as you go forest like I do, let me know if you sign up this way as they might need to add our sparkly trees manually, try clicking the other link first!)
You can see an up to date counter of my trees below:
And I sent this certificate to my clients to thank them for helping me fight climate change...
You can read about Ecologi's responsible re-forestation policies here.
At Home
Of course we recycle like most households nowadays.
We have one electric car via Nik's NHS "salary sacrifice" lease scheme which is also currently saving us with the crazy fuel prices at the moment.
I've been using a Mooncup since 2018, which not only saves the planet but cash too as it's reusable. It prevents a lot of single use plastic waste!
When ordering online, I try to checkout with ShopPay as they automatically offset the carbon from your deliveries.
Our power supplier uses only renewable energy.
I use Wild Deodorant, all natural deodorant with plastic free refills - this link gets you a free case and me 20% off my next order. I bought the limited edition Pride case and you can even personalise it!
Shopping locally when & where possible.
I love to shop in charity shops, especially for the kids as they grow out of things so quickly. Pre-loved is perfect and you can find some great quality 2nd hand kids clothes! I also love local seller, Damson Preloved - her whole ethos is about zero waste.
Supporting other small, sustainable businesses. I love Wyatt & Jack who create gorgeous bags out of broken inflatables, my rainbow mermaid bag made out of old bouncy castles is always a conversations starter! I also have a fab raincoat from Insane In The Rain who's coats are made from recycled plastic bottles!
Cooking meat-free meals. I have some great meat-free recipes, my favourite one being mushroom stroganoff and I always love cauliflower cheese!
Changing our meat eating habits. I did a little research and it seems that pork and poultry are the meats with the lowest carbon footprint so we now avoid beef & lamb unless we're eating out or when we occasionally have steak at home. When I make bolognaise or chilli con carne, I use turkey thigh mince and we can't really tell the difference. Roast dinners are usually pork or chicken now too, we had a lovely roast pork with beans for Easter lunch this year instead of lamb.
All of our lamps and lights are LED bulbs to save energy.
We have a bug hotel which fills up with bees every summer and we planted lots of alliums and other flowers for bees & butterflies in our garden.
More things we could be doing at home...
Shopping locally more to avoid all the excessive plastic supermarket packaging and deliveries. Time & ease does often trump this as a busy part-time dentist, running two businesses and raising two kids but I hate seeing it pile up in the recycling bin as I unpack into the fridge! Every little helps though and I do love a fresh fishmonger purchase or gorgeous fruit & veg from our local farm shop.
Cooking more fresh, local produce.
Being more aware of food miles.
I'm looking at buying an Eco Egg for washing.
Resources
A few places you can find more info and inspiration...
The late Zero Waste Maman has a whole host of tips and amazing energy on her website and social media feeds. She is much missed, gone FAR too soon, but the legacy of all of the amazing and helpful information she shared is still there to help us!
Mooncup, don't be scared, it's so much better than you think! I'm happy to answer any questions if you email/DM me.
Uckfield is having it's very first Eco Expo in a couple of weeks. I sadly won't make it as I'm travelling home from a funeral that day but be sure to check it out if you're available. Some great local eco businesses will be there including the fabulous Damson Preloved!
I'd love to know any tips you have for being more eco friendly? Do let me know in the comments below so others can find out more ways to help too ;)
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