5 Steps for influencing an eco-friendly lifestyle
Photo by Anna Oliinyk
More and more people have taken the time to become aware about the connection between their health, lifestyles, and the environment. This increasing awareness has fed into the long-term trend of individuals taking on an eco-friendly lifestyle for the good of the environment.
In this article, we will break down 5 key steps to help you create an eco-friendly lifestyle for yourself and spread the word on how others can follow your footsteps.
1.Educate yourself and others
Despite the fact that being eco-friendly has become mainstream, there is still a need to understand what “eco-friendly” actually means and the actions that can be taken in your everyday life.
When sharing your message of environmental sustainability, it is important to keep in mind that not everyone will have the same starting point of environmental awareness. Therefore, by raising awareness about environmental issues, you’ll be able to create a general awareness through knowledge-sharing. According to experts at Best Writers Online, sharing the negative impacts that unsustainable behaviors have on the environment such as not sorting trash from recycling or polluting the ocean with ways to mitigate this type of behavior can be effective. Alternatively, sharing media from documentaries and films highlighting these issues can also be an impactful way to share the message with your audience.
2.Share personal experiences
Speaking from your personal experience and sharing tips and tricks is a great way to encourage others to put in some extra effort into protecting the environment themselves. You can share these insights on social media, on a personal online blog like the writing service Writing Judge, by taking part in local conferences, attending schools and universities to hold a lecture, etc. Using social media and other digital tools to share your learnings and experiences to reach a wider and international audience.
3.Join a community
Another way to share your eco-friendly lifestyle is by finding someone to share your sustainability journey with. Not only can you hold each other accountable for actually pursuing your intended actions, you can visit events together or collaborate on projects. Don’t know anyone in your community who has the same interests as you? No problem! It is easy to create an online community of sustainability-minded people yourself or simply connect with a pre-existing one.
A great way to get people together is through organizing a local cleanup group to collect rubbish around your community. Besides supporting your community and the cleanliness of your local environment, organizing such meetings and writing about your experience will help others understand that environmentally friendly living can be active, simple, even fun!
4.Reduce your environmental footprint
Having an eco-friendly lifestyle does not have to be expensive and complex. Despite what many people think, sustainable living can actually save you a lot of money, that is, if you make the right choices and stay away from overcomplicating it. There are a lot of different areas where savings can be made and taking part in the 3 Rs makes great content when sharing your sustainability journey. Let’s look at some examples.
Mitigating overconsumption
An easy rule of thumb to follow for reducing your environmental footprint is the 3 R’s principle: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. By reducing the amount of things you buy and reusing secondhand items, less of Earth’s resources will need to be exploited, and you end up saving money. If your favorite pair of pants has a hole in it, why not get it repaired instead of replacing it with a new pair? Chances are you will feel way happier with your favorite clothing item repaired than with a brand new random item. If your pants are really beyond saving, you can reuse the fabric for a fun DIY or recycle it properly, so the resources that were used to create them in the first place won’t go wasted.
Reusable is the way to go
A sustainable way of living often involves choosing reusable items of all sorts. For example, you can encourage your followers to buy a thermal mug instead of buying coffee in plastic or paper cups at their local coffee place. The same relates to drinking straws, you can showcase and suggest that metal or glass straws be used in the place of plastic ones. You can share the message that sustainability is also great for cost-savings since a sustainable alternative will eliminate the need to continuously keep purchasing new items.
5.Have patience
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Bear in mind that, despite having the ambitions to live more consciously and environmentally-friendly, a lifestyle change cannot be made overnight. It is important to understand that becoming more sustainable and environmentally-aware is a gradual process.
To help your audience with their sustainability journey, you can provide them with tips on implementing eco-friendly habits step by step to simplify the process for them. You can share a weekly sustainability goal with your following while sharing your own progress to further motivate them and encourage them to also spread the word!
In conclusion
Nowadays, you probably won't find someone who has never heard of the term, “eco friendly”. There are many people around us who want to become more eco-friendly, but don’t know where to begin, which is where you can come in. By sharing your own sustainability journey, you can motivate those around you to also do their part.
Want to learn more about influencing an eco-friendly lifestyle? Read our blog on “How to use Instagram to showcase your environmental sustainability” here.