Sweet Greens

You’re never too late to begin making changes that can alter the course of the Earth’s existence. Plus, sustainable living provides plenty of opportunities for families to live more fulfilling lives and save more money to spend on new experiences such as education and getaways. Of course, money isn’t the be-all and end-all. But it certainly helps to have some form of a financial cushion to help you bounce back through tough times, more so now than ever. And it’s a welcomed incentive as part of a person’s effort to live a greener life.

Renewable Energy Sources

Powering our homes, from TVs to lightbulbs, appliances to hot showers, is costly, not to mention incredibly harmful to the environment. However, with a bit of research and a willingness to change your existing energy sources, it doesn’t need to be that way. 

Examples of renewable energy sources include energy created with solar panels using the sun’s rays, and wind turbines using the wind. 

If you shop around online, you should be able to find an energy company who only provides renewable energy to your area. 

Otherwise, an alternative and increasingly popular option are to invest in community solar, which consists of multiple members of the public paying for a solar project to be built and supply energy to each member. Solar energy is a cost-efficient energy source, particularly when you’re sharing the investment with other people from your neighborhood. It’s definitely worth considering.

Switch Up Transport

Another effective eco-friendly solution that benefits both you and the environment is changing your usual form of transport. From push bikes to electric-powered bikes (electric generated by pedaling), there are multiple alternative transport solutions you and your family can use to get around.

The running costs of a car, in particular, amount to hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars a year. Selling your vehicle will enable you to put aside a substantial amount of cash for your kids’ college fees or your early retirement. Not to mention, you’ll significantly reduce your carbon footprint.

Vegetable Patch

Homemade compost, seeds from some of your favorite fruits and vegetables, and a homemade greenhouse are all you need to begin nurturing and growing your very own crops. 

Vegetables cultivated by farmers are often sprayed with multiple, harmful pesticides that pollute the atmosphere. Furthermore, an extensive amount of fuel is used to run transportation, which ships the food to the local store, causing more damage to the air. And the food is likely wrapped, sometimes with non-bio-degradable packaging, non-bio-degradable, meaning more trash is transported to the landfill.

However, by growing food at home in your garden, you’ll eliminate the process above, which applies damaging pressure to the environment. And in turn, create healthy organic food, which will cost you next to nothing compared to purchasing food from the shops.

Living a sustainable life and utilizing eco-habits offers much more than fresh and healthy vegetables for your family. As highlighted above, it can also provide you more money to create a better, more fulfilling future for you and your loved ones.

 We can never have enough of Nature. – Henry David Thoreau

While there are many crucial problems facing the world right now, it’s true that bettering ourselves where we can will still make a difference. No matter how powerless you may feel in the midst of a pandemic, or with sweeping political issues causing conflict in countries around the world, we can all act locally and try to be better people in our own lives. If more people thought that way, the change would happen overnight to some degree, as we each share a burden of responsibility to this end.

Yet, many of us are ill-equipped to give the most thought-out and lifetime-researched political ideas to a large audience, nor can we make massive systemic change overnight. However, we can focus on issues that are becoming more relevant by the day, such as the ecological crisis that elevates our environmental awareness each day.

So, what habits can we integrate into our lifestyles, habits that are sustainable, a keener alternative, and more importantly, those that offer a real, measurable effect? Let’s explore these questions together:

Eco Fashion

We would heavily recommend reading our excellent guide to eco-fashion in 2020. As more and more people are conscious of their environmental impact, knowing where to source sustainable clothing and to make the most of fashion in this light will become a popular new method of developing and benefiting from ethical daily habits. Furthermore, eco fashion alternatives allow us to support vital initiatives that truly do care about the environment, and away from clothes sourced in sweatshop conditions abroad, or other less friendly areas. This way, your conscience can stay clean even as you look stylish.

Eco Home Design

With the best planning architects, eco home design allows us to manage a property in the right way, renovating with an eye on our carbon footprint. From conservation areas that make the most of natural lighting, to better organizing space for an indoor garden, or finding the best roofing designs to allow natural solar integration in your energy system, the more you can reduce your power intake or pull from sustainable, renewable sources, you’ll be more likely to ensure your home is a stable, environmentally sensitive place to inhabit. The more this becomes the norm, the better.

Our Travel Impact

Now that lockdown is starting to end, we can consider the choices we make moving around this world. It can be that we purchase a bicycle to get to work instead of using public transport, a measure that can also protect us for the time being. Furthermore, it may be that using Uber carpool options or giving a friend a lift to work instead of taking two separate cars helps you move forward with conscientiousness. It may even be, if you have the means, that trading your vehicle in for a hybrid or eclectic option can make a significant impact. The more you can approximate differing solutions like this, the better your results will be.

With this advice, you will be sure to develop eco-habits that affect your everyday.

You might think that making a meal for your kids that’s sustainable, healthy, and delicious is about as likely as finding a law firm that delivers results. However, we’d like to happily disagree, as it’s surprisingly easy to craft a meal that nourishes growing bodies while putting satisfied smiles on little faces–and all while staying kind to the Earth.

If you’re new to the sustainable lifestyle, choosing the right foods and beverages can be overwhelming. Fortunately, we’re here today to give you some tips on creating a nutritious and eco-conscious lunch for your child.

Let them be a little picky

Moms everywhere agonize about getting their kids the daily nutrients they need to keep growing big and strong. On the one hand, you want to instill healthy, sustainable habits in your children from an early age. On the other hand, sugar. Lots and lots of sugar everywhere. How do you reconcile this age-old dilemma? One way is by taking your kids shopping with you and letting them make their own food choices.

Of course, where you take them matters, too. A convenience store won’t have a fraction of the nutritional value you’ll find at a farmer’s market. Farmer’s markets provide local, pesticide-free produce, and can also be exciting places to visit in their own right. If you’re looking to educate your children on sustainability while giving them the freedom to make healthy choices of their own, you can’t go wrong shopping at a farmers market.

WIY: Wrap it yourself

If you’re a younger mom, you more than likely remember your school lunch days that were plentiful with individually-packaged snacks. As fun and accessible as these treats were, they offered little nutrition and sustainability. Skipping the packaged foods cuts down on plastic consumption, but you’ll also get the opportunity to create your fun snacks loaded with the vitamins and minerals your kids need to keep moving. Interestingly, the popularity of individually-packaged foods is a vestige of a wartime era when food had to be rationed. However, you can kick these old habits by packing much healthier meals for your kids in reusable wrappers and bags.

Skip the meat and dairy

Animal products tend to have a more significant effect on the environment than their plant-based counterparts. If your kids are carnivores, though, opt for one meatless day of the week (Meatless Mondays, perhaps?). Even by choosing to go meatless for only one day of the week, you can teach your children the importance of doing their part to help their environment. Vegan standbys for kids include hummus wraps, veggie dip packs, and the beloved peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

It’s surprisingly easy to make your children’s lunches both more sustainable and delicious at the same time. By letting your children make their lunchtime choices, you can teach them valuable lessons about caring for your body and the world around you. If that doesn’t make lunchtime a win-win, we don’t know what does. Happy lunch packing!