At Magenta we have always made a conscious effort to be a greener company and offered clients ethical and sustainable investment choices. This past year we have been actively making our office space greener by reducing our paper use drastically, using sustainable cleaning products and offsetting our carbon emissions by planting our Magenta forest with Ecologi.
This attitude shift towards sustainability has also been visible everywhere this year, particularly in the last month with COP26 being hosted in the UK. There have been a multitude of press articles and news headlines which have been quite harrowing about our future on this planet – and sometimes it gets hard to remember we can all make a difference.
Whilst change needs to happen quickly, small steps that everyone can take will make a huge impact and over time we will all adjust to a new way of living.
Below I have broken down 5 easy to follow tips that we can all do to make our lives a little greener in 2022:
Change to a greener bank/ investment manager
This has been proven to be substantially more impactful than anything we can do at home. Most of the population have Pensions and Bank Accounts and changing these to a greener provider can be a simple change that can make a huge difference. It can be 27 times more impactful than anything else you can do. Click the card logo next to this text to read a WHICH? blog with all the top banks and their associated ratings in this area!
Shop Local
Many local shops stock all the groceries you need to make a lovely meal, and most of these stores don’t pack their produce in plastic!
On top of this the produce is likely to have come from close by, meaning fewer emissions have occurred in delivering your food from field to home.
Other tips are to try saying no to receipts (they contain plastic!), coffee cups, water bottles, and shopping bags, and start taking your own reusable versions.
This won’t change things overnight, but slowly saying no to plastic items will gradually grow over time. A great website that we have come across is locallyuk.com – here you can find local shops and produce for many occasions.
Walking
We’ve become a society that relies on easy/instant access to multiple things.
We have forgotten that walking somewhere is not only great for you and your body but good for the planet too.
Invest in a good backpack and get out walking rather than getting in the car!
It’s great to look down at your health app or Fitbit and see how much your average step count has increased since making a few changes a week! or Download apps like Strava if you are planning to do a hike.
Pet Waste
I know many of you are pet lovers!
Take a look at what you’re pets’ waste each month is. My partner and I have two cats and the amount of litter and food pouches we go through makes me squirm. This year I’m looking at ways to reduce my pet’s waste. I’ve been using biodegradable ‘poo bags’ but this year I’m going to try switching to a biodegradable cat litter, many of which you can flush!
As well as this I have found a great food website for cat food is Lily’s this is a subscription-style food delivery and is highly recommended in the UK and they deliver the food in tins (which are recyclable). They have an amazing range of food and their hypoallergenic range has particularly caught my eye, due to my cat’s sensitive belly.
Reduce Food Waste
Planning meals ahead of time and then buying just enough produce to make those meals can reduce the amount that gets thrown into your food waste each week. Try to pick meals that share ingredients as well so you can make the most of multipacks/ bulk buying discounts.
A great app to try and help you with this mission is ‘Kitche’. The app keeps track of your food at home whilst giving you features and functionality to ensure you buy what you eat and eat what you buy.
Hopefully, these 5 tips can help you to start to think about being a little greener in the new year.
Do call us if you would like to discuss any of these issues further.