Juicy Tips to Raise Your Stewardship & Lower Negative Environmental Impact

With over 7.5 billion people on the planet, we all need to act wisely to ensure the protection of our natural resources for future generations. Effective stewardship begins with solid environmental awareness on how to decrease negative impacts on nature.

Numerous simple ways exist for resource conservation, waste minimization, and environmental footprint reduction in our personal and professional lives. When combined with the positive environmental deeds of others, these minor changes can add up to huge results.

Increasing your environmental knowledge and enacting positive behaviors can be easier than you think. Read on for some juicy tips to you can use to start down the path to better sustainability and environmental protection.

How to Leave a Positive Impression on the Environment

Conserve Electricity. Most electricity production in the United States still utilizes fossil fuels. This non-renewable energy consumption increases levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Thus, using less electricity reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Turning off lights and electronic devices when not in use and adjusting your thermostat up to 76 °F in the summer will help in your conservation efforts. Moreover, investing in energy-efficient appliances and bulbs offer added opportunities to decrease power consumption.

To increase your positive impact further, consider purchasing wind-generated electricity from your utility. Moreover, you could also research installing solar panels at your home or business to meet your electricity needs. These sources of renewable energy do not add greenhouse gas emissions to the air during the power generation process.

Conserve and Protect Water. Did you know that only 2.5% of the water on Earth is freshwater? In addition, most of that freshwater is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. That only leaves about 1% of Earth’s total water readily available to sustain us, so using water wisely and protecting it from pollution is a must.

Take shorter showers, turn off running water while brushing your teeth, water your lawn only once a week, and run the dishwasher and washing machine only when full to preserve water. To heighten conservation efforts, think about putting in low flow showerheads, faucets, and toilets.

Protect water sources from pollution by properly disposing of used oil and household chemicals, avoiding the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides on the lawn, and washing your car at a car wash. All these activities prevent the contamination of stormwater replenishing the lakes, rivers, and streams that supply our drinking water.

Practice Efficient Transportation. The majority of vehicles we use to transport ourselves and the goods we use in our everyday lives run on fossil fuels, adding to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. As such, engaging in activities to raise the efficiency of transportation assists in reducing your carbon footprint.

Carpooling, utilizing mass transit, combining errands into fewer trips, keeping your vehicle properly maintained, and driving at or below the speed limit help to decrease your individual fuel consumption for transportation. Moreover, buying local, when feasible, reduces emissions associated with the transport of goods due to the shorter travel distances to retail stores.

Furthermore, examine the possibility of an electric or hybrid vehicle for your next car purchase to shrink your carbon footprint even further. Over the life of the car, you will likely also save money!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The goods we consume represent the consumption of fuel and other natural resources. Some of those product raw materials are rare and non-renewable. Additionally, pollution of the environment often results from manufacturing processes. As such, lowering general consumption, using things over again, and reclaiming materials to be fashioned into other products lessens the demand on resources and the potential for environmental contamination.

You should assess consumption habits and buy only what you need to avoid unnecessary waste. Look for items with minimal product packaging to further curtail waste generation. Purchase durable items made to be used more than once rather than one-use versions and take your own reusable shopping bags to carry purchases.

Utilize your own refillable water bottle or coffee mug at work, home, and in-between to reduce the use of throwaway cups. Furthermore, recycle all the paper, glass, and plastics you can and consider donating clothes and other items instead of sending them to the landfill.

Pay Attention to Environmental Awareness Programs at Work. Environmental impacts at work deserve additional attention. Most business activities with the potential to negatively affect the environment are controlled by the government. As such, it is important for you, as an employee, to ensure you go about your tasks in a manner that protects the environment and does not violate any laws or regulations.

Your company should provide you with sufficient environmental training to perform your job effectively. Environmental awareness topics may include stormwater management, chemical storage, and secondary containment requirements, spill prevention & countermeasures, waste minimization, and/or hazardous and universal waste management.

In addition, your employer may provide you with details of its sustainability program or environmental management system if they have one. You have a duty to understand and comply with these company efforts to manage & reduce environmental impacts from its activities.

Final Thoughts

Making changes to your activities to decrease your environmental footprint does not have to overwhelm you. Plenty of manageable sustainability behaviors exist. It is simply a question of whether you decide to incorporate environmentally-responsible choices into your daily life.

Remember, our planet is a finite space, and it has to accommodate an ever-growing population. Simple modifications in our attitudes and actions now will help preserve and pave a better way for future generations to come.