The start of a new year is the perfect time to reflect on how we want to grow and change, and look at what areas we can better ourselves in over the next 12 months. The new year is also a great opportunity to look back over the previous year and see what you did that you wanted to bring into the new year and what would be better to cut out of your life. 

This year, a great goal to set is to pursue sustainability in your lifestyle. You could focus on cooking at home more, buying less stuff you don’t really need, recycling more, and the list could go on and on. The consumerist, wasteful direction that our society is heading in is hurting the planet and it’s up to us as individuals to start changing the way we live in order to create a better future for our planet. Sustainability can bring so many great benefits to your life—this could be your best year yet!

Why sustainability?

With the multitude of areas of self improvement that you can choose to focus on in a new year, why is sustainability so important. There’s no denying that the current climate crisis is only getting worse, and that we are consuming more and more every year instead of less. Free 2 day shipping, fast fashion, and convenient food delivery options are all allowing us to buy more and throw away more than ever before. 

We are encouraged at every turn to buy more stuff and to prioritize convenience over everything else. In our fast paced world, there’s often little time to consider whether something we’re doing is really good for the planet. Sustainability is essential not only for the planet, but it also dramatically improves how you live your life as your priorities get restructured around what matters. Intentional living is always better than hurrying through life.

Set realistic goals

When making any kind of resolution, it’s easy to set lofty goals that probably aren’t attainable in just a year. There’s a reason that most people’s new year’s resolutions rarely make it out of the first two weeks of January! In order to really make your new habits stick, try to achieve one specific goal every day for the next month. 

It’s pretty easy to do something consistently for just a month, and at the end of that time period, you can reassess and see how it worked for you and if it’s something you want to keep in your routine. This is especially important with sustainability, because it’s all about creating habits that help the environment instead of harming it. For example you could set the goal of for one month you were going to remember your reusable coffee cup every day, instead of getting a disposable one at the coffee shop. After that month, it probably wouldn’t require any extra thought in your routine because it had just become a habit.

Start with the easy stuff

It’s easy to look at people who only own 20 belongings, or who live on a solar powered farm, or who have the money to support renewable energy projects, as the models to follow in sustainability. While extreme situations are powerful statements on what is possible and can be incredibly freeing and fulfilling lifestyles for some people, they aren’t attainable or realistic for the vast majority of the population. 

Change doesn’t occur when 100 people do drastic things and a billion people do nothing. We are all responsible for changing our lifestyles in small, consistent ways that when combined with other people doing the same thing, incredible change can occur. Think about it. If only 100 million people out of 6 billion all cut out 10 pieces of single use plastic in a year from their life, that adds up to 1 billion pieces of plastic not being used and ending up in a landfill, or worse a local ecosystem.

Start using EcoCart

EcoCart is a great example of a small step you can take in your lifestyle that adds up to have big change. Everyone orders stuff online, often almost every week and all those orders have a carbon footprint. When you install EcoCart, it calculates the carbon footprint for your order and donates on your behalf to offset that carbon footprint. You don’t have to do anything except click the big green button to activate it. After that EcoCart does all the work for you and you can sit back and relax without worrying about the effects of your order. EcoCart is a great way to get your sustainable new year’s resolutions off to a great start. And it’s not too late to get started! Head over and install EcoCart and get started reducing your carbon footprint.