Top 10 Eco-actions for your New Year Resolutions
As the current year wanes and we begin to anticipate the next one, most of us spend at least a few moments thinking about what we can change to help ensure a productive next year. We often focus on ourselves, lose weight, get in shape, study harder, or start that side-project or hobby we’ve always thought about.
But what about taking the opportunity of a new year as a way to take meaningful action on climate change? To make the planet’s health part of the plan?
The whole point of Happy Eco News has always been to encourage people to take action and make some positive change in the world. However, it’s difficult to remember sometimes that activism is not for everyone. I am reminded that the average concerned citizen must understand where they, too, can make small changes that matter. It sometimes seems that many environmentalists have an all-or-nothing mentality. In my day-to-day interactions, I sometimes experience an attitude that seems to say that if you aren’t “a strict vegan leading a zero-carbon life, you don’t really care.” This extreme position alienates the very people we need to have helping us. These millions of regular people acknowledge the climate crisis and are willing to make a few meaningful choices to help the planet. The important thing for these people is that it doesn’t have to mean sacrifice; it just means making deliberate choices in what they do and what they buy in their regular lives.
But what can they do that will make the most impact? A new study has revealed the top 10 eco-actions we can make that will most significantly impact our CO2 emissions. In cooperation with a team of researchers from Oxford University, clean energy provider Uswitch.com analyzed current carbon emissions and estimated how they could differ when people took specific actions. They then compared these actions to current overall CO2 emissions to reveal the best way to reduce emissions in our everyday lives.
The study found plenty of effective New Year resolutions for 2023 that can help reach zero carbon emissions; here are the top 10.
Table: Top 10 2023 New Year Resolutions to Reduce Carbon Emissions
According to the data, if every person only used renewable energy and practised energy efficiency measures, total CO2 emissions could be reduced by nearly 19%, making this the top eco resolution for people to make in 2023. In most cases, the cost to consumers to switch to renewable energy is no different than non-renewable sources so why not change?
Opting for an electric car is the second-most impactful eco-resolution to stick to next year. I can personally attest that modern EVs are really amazing vehicles and up to 91% of people who drive one would never switch back. Quiet, cheap to operate, and able to “re-fuel” at home, they are a natural technological progression of the automobile. If just half of automobile drivers switched to an EV, we would attain a 4% reduction in CO2 emissions. If EV penetration reached 75%, we would achieve a 9% emissions reduction!
Individual actions significantly impact how soon we get to zero carbon emissions and send a clear message to companies and legislators. If everyone took action in this way, the cumulative impact would be enormous and the people running businesses and the government would take notice.
Will 2023 be the year you make the changes you have been thinking about? Take action!
With regard to the environmental benefits of lifestyle changes it’s important to remember that uniquely amongst the actions listed above reducing our consumption of animal based foods not only reduces CO2 emissions but also reduces methane emissions, deforestation, biodiversity loss, the pollution of waterways with agricultural run off, the indiscriminate use of antibiotics and frees up land for rewilding and carbon storage.