Earth Week 2020: 10 Ideas for Sustainable Living

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and to honor this milestone anniversary, we are sharing 50 earth-friendly activities broken down into five different themes.

Our theme today is THINKING AHEAD. Being sustainable takes a commitment to making conscious choices that support our planet. It is important for a very simple, very straightforward reason: we cannot maintain our quality of life as human beings, the diversity of life on earth, or earth’s ecosystems unless we embrace it. "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." — Native American proverb.

10 ideas for a more sustainable lifestyle:

1. Take a free carbon footprint test.
2. Shop at secondhand stores and avoid “fast fashion.”
3. Purchase a yard waste can to use instead of plastic bags.
4. Move your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and two degrees down in winter to reduce your carbon footprint by 2,000 pounds.
5. Telecommute more. (this one’s easy, right?!)
6. Read “Waste” book to get informed.
7. Plan to vacation closer to home to avoid flying. If you fly five times per year, those trips are likely to account for 75% of your personal carbon footprint.
8. Plan a stream cleanup when stay-at-home orders are lifted.
9. Get an energy audit.
10. Keep your tires properly inflated to improve your gas mileage and reduce your carbon footprint by 20 pounds for each gallon of gas saved.