It’s the National Day of Climate Action, and to celebrate 1 Million Women is sharing our favourite action tips with you, one tip every hour, for 24 hours.
You can make every day one of climate action by doing these simple activities. Individual actions add up to a huge difference.
Here they are, our 24 climate action tips in 24 hours (It’s like a greatest hits countdown only better). Enjoy! Act! Make a difference!
How to …
1. Become an informed and conscious consumer by researching the environmental, health and safety attributes or problems of the things you want to buy before you go shopping. Using an internet search engine is an easy way to find consumer advice and endorsements from reputable sources including ethical businesses, government agencies and community-based environment and consumer advocacy groups. Also see our discussion rooms for tips from others.
2. Plan shopping trips by making a mental or written list of what you need to do and buy when you go to town and/or the shops so you do everything you can to make the most of each trip, saving you time and money, and helping the environment.
3. Always carry reusable shopping bags with you, including leaving some in your car, so you can say ‘no’ to plastic bags (having your own collapsible shopping kart is another good idea).
4. Study the labels to look for products that have credible environmental claims supported by independent verification
5. Ask the retailer questions if you have any doubts or queries about the claims being made or the origins of the product .
6. Look for products that:
Help you to reduce bulk and waste such as concentrated laundry and kitchen detergents for cleaning, or cordials to make up tasty drinks with tap water
Are refillable and/or the packaging is recyclable
Are lightly packaged, and avoid anything you think is excessively packaged
Use recycled content in their production
7. Always beware of generalised environmental claims such as ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘climate neutral’ unless they very clearly explain the benefit being claimed and have it independently verified.
8. Also see the activity sections on home energy saving and the journey of food for other shopping-related activities.
9. A key area for reducing CO2 emissions is learning to shop for ‘least life-cycle cost’ rather than the cheapest item on the day.
An energy-saving light globe might cost 4 or 5 times as much at the shop as a traditional incandescent one, but can last about 8 times as long and use 80% less electricity, making it far more cost-effective at providing you with the service of 8 years of light.
Buying a better quality, more fuel-efficient medium-sized car for the same price as a larger fuel-guzzler is likely to give you 5-plus years of low-maintenance driving at a lower cost with less pollution
NOTE: Measuring CO2 linked to all of things we buy week by week is a complicated exercise. 1 Million Women has assigned a ‘campaign carbon value’ of 200kg a year for one person for this ‘learning curve’ activity, based on a conservative interpretation of our research into the carbon savings that aware consumers can make by focusing on being ‘carbon-smart’ consumers. If you take responsibility for leading this activity for more people in your household, we add on 100kg a year for each extra person.
Why is it important?
Everything we buy and consume has its own carbon footprint story embedded in producing it and getting it to you. As shoppers and consumers, we have power to drive change in:
What we buy, and therefore what gets produced and offered for sale
How we use and maintain things, and
What we do with them when we don’t want them anymore, or they’ve reached end-of-life.