The most important thing is your awareness.
Know which of your actions conctribute to greenhouse gas emissions the most. If you dare, educate others. Don’t feel you have to do it all. Start with a few easy habits to implement (e.g. not buying water in plastic bottles, bringing reusable grocery bags when you go shopping and actually eat the food you buy.) Then move on to the bigger things.
the problem: manufacturing
- Use less plastic products (bags, bottles, packaging)
- Make less trash/throw away less that results in more landfills; recycle as much as you can
- Replace non-recyclable plastic products in your household with sustainable ones
- Make your own products at home (e.g. balms, cleaners, deodorant)
- Drink tap instead of bottled water
- Don’t get coffee in to-go cups
- Buy less
- If you buy, try to go second-hand
- Make more yourself
the problem: energy generation
- Live in a smaller space
- Reduce the amount of electricity, water, and heat you use
- Try to set up your home with energy from a renewable resource (e.g solar energy or groundwater heat)
- Ditch your dryer (for all the Americans out there); the rest of the worlds survives with the earth-friendly alternative called a drying rack
- Replace your traditional light bulbs with LEDs
- Wash your laundry at 30 or 40 degrees Celsius, instead of 60.
the problem: transportation
- Use your car less: walk or ride your bike
- Fly less
- Use more public transportation/shared rides
- Don’t eat “fly-fruit” and “fly-veggies” (produce that is imported by plane)
- Purchase products that were made in your country/on your continent
the problem: Agriculture
- Throw away less food
- Buy food that was grown locally and is in season
- Eat less cow products (beef, milk and cheese)
- If you buy meat, chose organic and local
+ more
- Shop via smile.amazon.com and chose an environmental charity to donate the proceeds to
- Consider Ecosia for web searches
- Plant a tree
- Let someone plant a tree for you (e.g. with Plant Fot The Planet)
- Buy a Co2-compensation certificate (e.g. from Atmosfair)
- Donate to an environmental charity (great companies that actually use donated funds for projects and not to run the organization itself are Atmosfair, BUND, Greenpeace and WWF)