Although some of the things I'm going to talk about below don't actually "offset" my carbon emissions, they instead just help to reduce them, they're still equally as important and effective but I hope they are all still useful and give some inspiration regardless because we can all be part of a collective effort when it comes to offsetting and reducing our carbon emissions!
ECOSIA
So I've been using Ecosia for around 3 years now and it's probably one of the best things I've ever done. It's essentially a web browser that plants trees! Not only does it require no additional effort, but you actually contribute to the planting trees worldwide at no cost!! They've planted over 120 million trees at this point and that number is juts exponentially rising. In fact, every search removes 1kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere! After setting it as your default browser, you can begin planting trees without even thinking about it! It also keeps a tab of how many trees they've been able to plant because of your personal searches, which is extremely uplifting! And they also upload their monthly financial reports for full transparency, which is very refreshing nowadays.
ECOLOGI
Ecologi is a relatively recent find for me but once I heard about it and learned about it, I could not but participate. As it says on their website, "We created Ecologi so people like you can actually take on the climate crisis" by planting trees and funding "the world's best climate crisis solutions". You can become climate positive by paying less than £2.75 per week. You have your own tree map for where your funded trees are planted and you can see the progress of your profile and you can set other carbon reducing goals for yourself to help keep yourself accountable.
The picture above is my profile at this current time, and I don't plan to discontinue this anytime soon because I know my money is helping to make a positive impact for the planet and everyone on it. Also it tells me that the 3.53T of carbon I've helped reduce from the atmosphere is equivalent to 3 long hauls flights, 11 metres^2 of sea ice saved, or 8,783 miles driven in a car!
SMALL & LOCAL > AMAZON
I'm honestly not someone that does a lot of online shopping, I just way prefer shopping in person when I need something. However when the first lockdown hit, I did find myself looking on websites more, and although my searches were definitely intentional, it did seem a bit strange to be one of those online browsers and shoppers all of a sudden. I did come to realise that Amazon is such a big player in the market which can be great and makes it very alluring with all that it has. However, these lockdowns also taught all of us just how important it is to support small, local, more vulnerable businesses when possible.
Therefore, I've made a promise to myself that whenever I do need to buy something, I either search for it on Amazon and buy directly from the actual seller's website if possible, I wait to buy it in person, or I just bypass Amazon all together and look for it elsewhere. I'm not here to explain to you why you should try to avoid buying from Amazon, at least not today, but you can definitely find articles or videos explaining to you why. Besides, it always feels nice supporting your local community, and they are generally more sustainable in their essence, which is a plus!
LESS FOOD IN THE BIN
During my last two years of University, they actually introduced small-scale dorm composting where you would sign up and you'd collect food scraps and put them in the compost collector bin right outside the dorm building. They would then give the food scraps to a nearby garden area for them to make into compost! It was honestly so exciting for someone like me who knows all about how important composting is. But since recently graduating and not being able to do that anymore, it's so hard to find somewhere to reliably compost or even compost at all when you don't even have a garden! Luckily we have a food disposal at home, so I try to throw whatever I can down there even though it's far from as effective as composting, and I do have to throw food in the bin sometimes which makes me cry a little inside... But trying to reduce food waste by only buying what you need, storing food properly, and composting if you at all can, are all so important and impactful.
I just saw this past week though that Péla will be releasing a super easy at home composter (Lomi) that literally turns anything compostable (including compostable plastics) into compost in a matter of hours!! If this works like they say it will then I think this is a huge game changer for composting at home and I will be buying one as soon as they release it!
REDUCE OVERCHARGING OF ELECTRONICS
I might have been late to the game, but when I found out that even when you are charging a device but the plug is still plugged in, electricity is being used. I also didn't realise that when you keep charging a device even when it's been at 100% for a while, it's actually often not very good for it. Although planned obsolescence is unfortunately all too common and almost unavoidable in the tech world, you can try to prolong the life of the device just a little longer by not overcharging it, and this will save on electricity as well! Overcharging can cause trickle charging and it can mess with the battery health and life of your device. One simple trick I have for not charging your phone or device overnight, but instead charging it when you get home or at least a couple hours before you sleep so that everything's fully or mostly charged before bed and you have nothing plugged in while you sleep. It's simple but really effective. Consider carrying a small phone battery pack with you sometimes as well! You might forget sometimes or it might not actually be possible which is completely okay, but just remembering a few times a week can definitely make a difference.
NATURAL LIGHT > ARTIFICIAL
I'm definitely very lucky to live in a room with a lot of natural light. Even in the winter I definitely get ample light compared to many other rooms, which I do not take for granted at all. One way I try to harness this in a sustainable way is to just not use the lights in my room until I actually need them. In the winter, sunset obviously comes a lot earlier, so I don't turn on my lights until around 4pm. But in the spring/summer, I'm able leave the lights off in my room and just rely on natural light for hours. Obviously this is not the case for most rooms, but even if you're able to reduce how long the lights are on by 30 minutes a day, it all adds up. Or even just dimming the lights a little can be very impactful. Also consider investing in LED lighting when you can.Your electricity bill and carbon footprint will thank you!
PLANT-BASED
I've personally been plant-based/vegan for just over 6 years, but I initially did it for certain health reasons. But soon after becoming vegan, I became aware of just how much better it can be for the environment, particularly if you're eating whole foods, that it's definitely a huge reason I'm so passionate about a plant-based diet now. I'm fully aware of how certain plant-based foods and more processed vegan foods can still have a big impact on the planet, but across the board for the most part, non-animal foods have much less of a strain on the earth than animal-based foods. This is another topic I will dedicate more time to in a future post because I'm very interested in and passionate about it, but on the whole, I'm all for making small changes, even if it just means a couple meals a week using lentils instead of beef. Even compared to when I went vegan 6 years ago, there are so many more choices nowadays almost everywhere you go, so it's easier than ever to choose plant-based. But remember, it's definitely more impactful for many people to make little choices than fewer people going all the way.
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