Transforming your life and, more importantly, your actions and choices to become a more environmentally friendly individual, family, community and town is fast becoming a necessity rather than a glamorous option as it was in the past.

Reducing your carbon footprint is a simple and relatively speedy way to do just that, and if you want to learn more about reducing your own carbon footprint, continue reading.

What Actually is Your Carbon Footprint?

Carbon emissions are incredibly harmful to nature, the environment, animals, human beings, and the planet as a whole.

Carbon emissions are essentially a type of greenhouse gas, which means such emissions contribute significantly to the warming of the Earth, known as the ‘Greenhouse Effect’. Other toxic gases harmful to the planet’s atmosphere include nitrous oxide, water vapor, methane, and ozone.

Carbon dioxide and other polluting gases negatively impact the planet, causing extensive and serious global warming and leading to significant climate change.

Drive Less: Walk More!

Every time you drive to the local store, pick your children up from the swimming pool or drive back from work on your daily commute, you are contributing to the pollution of the atmosphere

Obviously, modern life usually requires some means of transportation accessible at least some of the time, but being more conscious of whether you need to take the car is a surefire way to reduce the damage you are inflicting on the natural environment.

An excellent example of this would be to start ordering your groceries in one bundle each week, rather than taking the car to the store several times a week and arranging delivery of prescription medication through chemistclick.co.uk to be completed as part of a route – one vehicle compared to all patients going to a pharmacy.

Become a Conscientious Consumer

Another key component of reducing the negative impact your actions have on the natural environment is to, from now on, to start to think about the types of products you purchase and consume.

What you buy makes a real difference and is at the epicenter of sustainable living and a fantastically effective way of being kinder to the planet. This relates to the foodstuffs you buy and how you shop; always use reusable and recyclable shopping bags, only buy what you need, and consume lower amounts of red meat.

Live a Plastic-Free Life

Plastic is to the environment what poachers are to the animal kingdom and if you were to make only one change to reduce your carbon footprint, it should be to reduce your plastic use.

Not only do the vast majority of plastics remain in landfills for a very long time as they cannot be composted, but as they slowly break down, they release microplastics into the atmosphere, soil and water table. This has been proven to negatively impact the health of humans, let alone the other organisms on our planet.

Plastic is still a good resource for us to use, but it should be more carefully considered. Take the time to investigate your local area to discover zero waste stores (where you bring your own containers to carry the produce), never purchase drinks in plastic bottles, and where possible, buy produce in bulk, rather than in smaller packages.