Renewing my vows to sustainability

In 2020 I set some sustainability goals that I wanted to practice in 2020. Roughly a year later, I audited those goals to see how I was doing. tl;dr - not very well. So here is my renewed committmemt to some sustainability goals for 2021 and 2022.

Food consumption

1. Continue eating a vegetarian diet, unless I am traveling and want to sample local cuisine.
2. Do not buy sodas or water that come in plastic bottles.
   • Cut down soda consumption to “special events”.
3. Only buy vegan alternatives to milk and cheese products, unless I am baking, in which case I prefer whole milk.
   • Switch from oat milk to the most sustainable nut milk.
4. When buying eggs, look for the following labels, “Animal Welfare Approved”, “Certified Humane Raised and Handled”, “Global Animal Partnership (GAP) Certified” (Levels 3 and above), “No Antibiotics”, “Certified Organic”.
   • Stop buying eggs from grocery stores and instead get them from farms themselves.
5. Cut food delivery down to once every 2 months.
6. Reduce food waste:
   • Cook from my pantry to reduce the supplies in there.
   • Only buy ingredients that will last indefinitely in the fridge or that I can use up.
   • Freeze ingredients when needed.

Buying habits

1. Grocery shopping in person only
   • Continue using reusable totes and produce bags when grocery shopping.
2. Cancel Amazon Prime account. This means no more purchases via Amazon. Since I don’t have a Prime account, I shouldn’t be tempted by 2 day delivery anyway.
3. Keep restricting my online orders to 1 a month. Now that stores are opening up, I should be able to find most things I need in physical stores instead of having to find them online.

Commute

Since I am working from home for the rest of this year, my commute is significantly reduced. However, I want to use this time to create better commute habits:

1. Walk places that are within 1 hour walking distance.
2. Learn how to ride a bike over the coming months. Use said bike to commute to places that fall outside my walking range once I am able to.
3. Look into how I can ensure that my new electric car is only being charged using renewable energy.

Travel

Here, I am committing to doing more research in this field, so that I can make my travel more sustainable.

1. Start looking into how I can make my travel habits more sustainable (not buying travel sized toiletries for e.g.)

Conclusion

Given my track record, I will audit this blog to see how I am doing once a quarter to make sure I am abiding by these rules. 🤞🏽Let's hope I am able to meet these goals and add to them!